The standard 2024 Ford Ranger is a modestly updated version of the outgoing truck. It’s got fresh styling and more tech, but the base engine is the same 270 horsepower 2.3-liter turbo hooked to the same 10-speed automatic, the suspension setup is the same as the outgoing truck, and overall, it just feels like “The Old Truck In A Nice Suit,” as I wrote in my review. But then there’s the 2024 Ford Ranger Raptor — the more hardcore off-road version of the new Ranger, and it’s very much not the old truck in a fancy suit. It’s got a much more powerful engine; a thoroughly revised suspension that can handle big jumps; two locking differentials; and much more. I just drove the Ranger Raptor, and while it feels like the least hardcore Raptor in Ford’s lineup, that’s like calling someone the least handsome Hemsworth brother; it’s hardly an insult.

Ford has a number of off-road “brands” including Timberline, Tremor, and Raptor. You’ll find Timberline slapped onto Explorers and Expeditions that can’t even tackle the bunny slopes of Moab; you’ll see Tremor on Ford Mavericks that lack locking differentials, low range gearing, and proper underbody protection; but “Raptor”? That’s a name Ford reserves for the big-dogs. Historically, if you owned a Ford with the “Raptor” badge on it, you could be rest assured that your vehicle was at the very top of its class when it came to off-road capability.

Take the Ford Bronco Raptor. It starts with the already insanely-capable Bronco and adds 37-inch tires, a beefed up suspension, and a bigger and more powerful engine, creating what I believe is perhaps the most capable off-road vehicle in the world — maybe even ever. (And the only reason why I’m saying “maybe” is that it’s so big, limiting capability in certain environments like wooded trails). Look at this beast:

Then there’s the Ford F-150 Raptor. We’ve seen what this thing can do; it’s a jumping, high-speed, Baja 1000-winning megatruck, and in “R” form it makes over 700 horsepower and sounds like this:

Check out this jump:

For the longest time, the F-150 Raptor had no rivals. The outgoing Ram TRX and the upcoming replacement, the Ram 1500 RHO, came/are coming late to the game to try to compete, but no vehicle has ever left any Raptor in its dust. That also applies to the Bronco Raptor, which can do almost anything the Jeep Wrangler can off-road, and many things the Wrangler can’t.

Now Ford is adding a third Raptor to its portfolio, and while I’m not sure it will stand as dominantly at the very top of its class performance-wise like the F-150 and Bronco Raptor have/continue to do, it’s still a hell of a lot of fun to drive, as I found out when I piloted the thing around trails and makeshift dirt race courses around Salt Lake City, Utah.

[Full Disclosure: Ford flew me from LA to Salt Lake City, put me up in a nice hotel, and fed me various foods that I normally would be far, far too cheap to buy on my own. Also worth noting is that The Autopian was co-founded by the president of a large dealership franchise whose primary store is a Ford dealership. This obviously won’t affect how I review the truck, but it’s worth pointing out. -DT].  

But before I get into my driving impressions, let’s talk hardware, and see how the Ranger Raptor compares to the competition. I actually wrote an entire article about how, on paper, the Ranger Raptor seemed to be the least special Raptor relative to other vehicles in its class; I’ll quote much of that article, titled “The Ford F-150 Raptor And Bronco Raptor Were Game-Changers Off-Road. Here’s Why I Don’t Think The New Ranger Raptor Will Be,” in the section below.

Let’s Talk Hardware

 

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The new Ford Ranger Raptor, like the regular Ranger, is built on a frame that Ford calls an “advancement of the T6 architecture” — an architecture that has been around since 2011-ish. A Raptor version has been available in other countries for a while, though this new Raptor model that will soon be hitting dealerships here has been driving around in Australia for a bit over a year. It distinguishes itself from competitors by offering loads of power from the 3.0-liter twin-turbo V6 (also available in the Bronco Raptor) and a unique Watt’s Link coil suspension setup that was derived from the Fords Everest SUV offered overseas.

Geometry

If you’ve read my off-road reviews before, you know I always start with this: A vehicle’s single most important off-road attribute is favorable geometry. To hell with locking diffs, skid plates, and meaty tires if you don’t have good ground clearance in the right places; a decent approach, departure, and breakover angle; and a reasonable overall size. So let’s look at those, shall we?

Let’s start with approach angle, which I knew as soon as I looked at the Ranger Raptor in Michigan was not going to be amazing. Look at how low to the ground this chin sits:

Look at the photo above those, and you might come to the same conclusion that I did when I first saw the truck’s side profile: Man those tires look a bit small. I realize the 33s are the same size as those of much of the competition, and yet because so much of the bodywork appears low to the ground, those meats look small. Here, let me see if removing the running boards helps:

Let’s see if we can visualize 35s:

Subtle, but better.

As it sits, the stock truck has an approach angle of only 33 degrees. By comparison; the Chevy Colorado ZR2’s approach angle is 38.3, the Jeep Gladiator Mojave’s is 44.7; and while the new Tacoma TRD Off-Road’s approach angle is 32.5, you can bet the upcoming TRD Pro’s will be higher (the outgoing TRD Pro’s was over 36).

This matters because approach angle is arguably the single most important number on an off-roader’s spec sheet — even more so than ground clearance (one you get to a certain point), breakover angle, and departure angle. Lots of ground clearance will get you over things, but if you can’t get your front tires onto a slope without bashing your face into it, you’re stuck. You will go no farther. That’s not the case with a poor breakover angle or departure angle — so long as you’ve got your front tires onto something, you can often use momentum to drag your belly or your rear hitch as you ascend or descend a steep slope.

Speaking of breakover angles, the Ranger Raptor’s is 24.2, which compares favorably to the Jeep Gladiator’s pathetic 20.9 degree figure. By the way, just to show how big of a problem a low breakover angle can be, watch this. This is why I said “often use momentum to drag your belly):

Anyway, the new Tacoma TRD Off-Road’s 24.7 degree breakover angle leads the pack (TRD Pro will be higher), while the Colorado ZR2 comes in just behind that, besting the Ranger Raptor by 0.4 degrees at 24.6. As for departure angle, the Ranger Raptor’s 26.4 degree figure is basically at the top of the class with the Tacoma TRD Off-road’s 26.6 (though again, the TRD Pro will crank this up), and defeating the Gladiator’s 25.5 and the Colorado ZR2’s 25.1. Gladiator takes the win on ground clearance at 11.6 inches; the Colorado ZR2, Ranger Raptor, and TRD Off-Road come in at around 11 inches.

As for size, the Ranger is shorter in length than its competitors, but it’s wider. Only the ZR2 comes close in width, and at 5,298 pounds it is 27 pounds lighter than the heavyweight Ranger Raptor.

Maybe these specs are close enough that they’re not a huge deal, and the rather low front bash plate isn’t really specific to the Ranger Raptor. In any case, the Blue Oval’s mid-size off-road pickup is middle-of-the-pack when it comes to geometry.

Underbody Protection

The Ford Ranger Raptor’s underbody protection is good, but not amazing. The fuel tank has what looks like a stamped steel skidplate, but is actually just a plastic shield. This is disappointing, as Ford’s press release had me thinking this fuel tank protection would be metal:

The thick front bash plate is made of high-strength steel and is complemented by dedicated engine, transfer case and fuel tank shields.

There is good protection for the cast aluminum transfer case. Here’s the dogleg-shaped case skid plate coming off the back of the K-shaped transmission crossmember and bolting to the driver’s side frame rail:

Then up front, just aft of the rather low-hanging front bash plate is a nice steel plate protecting the front differential and the steering rack:

Unfortunately, just aft of that front axle skid plate is the transmission oil pan, which is unprotected and made of nylon. It’s the waffle-textured rectangular shape in the images below:

That transmission oil pan is fairly well tucked away between that front skid plate/member and the K-shaped member; I suppose if the truck dropped down on something that was just the wrong shape, that could be a problem, but it seems unlikely.

I’m not likely going to find usable underbody skid plate imagery of the Tacoma TRD Pro and new Colorado ZR2, but the Gladiator’s skid plate coverage is shown above. There’s protection for the fuel tank and transfer case, and there’s a thin crossmember protecting the steel transmission oil pan (there’s also a small metal bar running horizontally in the image above between that crossmember and the transmission crossmember to which the transfer case skid plate mounts, though it’s not highlighted). There’s no coverage for the engine, though the engine sits just above the axle tube, and is unlikely to experience significant impacts.

Compared to the Gladiator, which is the rock-crawling standard of the segment, the Ranger Raptor’s underbody protection looks just OK. I personally would want to bolt at least one metal bar from the front axle skid plate back to the center of the K-shaped crossmember, just to be safe for that transmission pan, and I’d want something more to protect the fuel tank, but overall it looks fine down there.

Traction And Gearing

The Ford Ranger Raptor has 33-inch all-terrain tires that will all spin at exactly the same speed when the vehicle’s front and rear differentials are locked. The Colorado ZR2 and Jeep Gladiator both feature front and rear lockers as well, plus they’re also spinning 33-inch all-terrain tires.

Traction also depends on getting tires onto the ground, and as far as suspension articulation, well, the Gladiator almost certainly has the highest Ramp Travel Index score due to its solid front axle, but it sacrifices high-speed off-road capability for that thanks to a solid axle’s unsprung mass, among other things. How the Ranger, with its coil-sprung Watt’s link in the rear compares to the ZR2, I can’t know until I test them side-by-side; in theory that coil spring setup should offer more flex than the ZR2’s leaf spring design.

While we’re talking about axles, let’s discuss gearing, which is important for low-speed technical off-roading. The Ranger Raptor has a crawl ratio of 67.88:1. That figure is a product of its first gear ratio, its transfer cases’s low range low range, and its axle ratio, and it represents how many times the engine’s torque is multiplied by the time it gets to the wheels. High crawl ratios mean the vehicle can confidently crawl up extremely steep grades without having to rev the engine for more power, and thus speeding the vehicle up (which you may not want to do in a risky, technical scenario). The automatic Tacoma TRD Off-Road has a crawl ratio of just 41, the Colorado ZR2’s is 42.1, and the Wrangler’s is 77. So the Ranger Raptor does quite well on that front, especially given that its engine makes so much more torque to begin with.

Power

If there’s one area that the Ford Ranger Raptor does decimate the competition, its power. With 405 horsepower and 430 lb-ft of torque from its 3.0-liter EcoBoost V6, the vehicle out-powers the Colorado ZR2 by 95 horsepower, though the torque figures match up exactly. The Gladiator’s standard 3.6-liter V6 makes 285 horsepower, 260 lb-ft and the Tacoma’s 2.4-liter turbocharged four-cylinder makes 278 horsepower, 317 lb-ft of torque in regular form or 326 horsepower, 465 lb-ft in hybrid guise.

Off-road, horsepower is rarely the name of the game, except when you’re bashing up steep dunes. Even though the Ranger Raptor is the heaviest of the lot, it still wins the power:weight ratio by a significant margin, so on the dunes, and in races, it will likely crush the rest of these mid-sizers. The Ford Bronco Raptor does weigh 400 pounds more, but it has a 13-horsepower stronger version of that 3.0-liter, and it goes from zero to 60 mph in about 6.3 seconds according to Motor Trend. I expect this Ranger Raptor will get that time down into the high fives, which is fine, and great for the class, but not amazing.

Suspension

The biggest deal when it comes to Ford Raptors is the suspension, and on that front, the Ranger has been thoroughly altered compared to non-Raptors, especially at the rear. Up front, what you see looks like a fairly typical double-wishbone suspension, though Ford says the knuckles are new, the control arms are new, and the Fox shocks are obviously unique to the Raptor. Ford also says the shock towers have been reenforced; though it’s a little hard to see in my images below. As Ford puts it:

Ranger Raptor is built on a beefy foundation, taking Ranger’s fully boxed frame up a notch by reinforcing the front frame rails, front shock towers, rear shock brackets, suspension mounting points, and other key areas so Ranger Raptor can handle more punishing off-road conditions.

For reference, here’s how the non-Raptor’s front suspension looks:

Out back is where things really change. The standard Ford Ranger’s rear suspension basically consists of a stick axle held to the truck via two leaf springs, which run fore-aft parallel to the car’s length — one on each side of the axle, attached to each frame rail in two locations. Those two leaf springs act as 1. Springs. 2. The fore-aft constraint for the axle and 3. The lateral constraint for the axle. That’s a lot of jobs for just two parts, but that’s really all it takes to create a truck suspension: Two leaf springs and two shocks (which — new for 2024, are mounted outboard of the springs, improving “motion ratio” — basically, making it so that the displacement of the shock better mirrors the displacement of the wheel. This would not be the case if the shock were mounted inboard, as the axle tends to lean and not just go straight up and down).

The Raptor turns all of this on its head to the point where the truck has a unique frame! To justify this added complexity to its assembly process, you can bet Ford is planning to sell a metric crap-ton of these Ranger Raptors, which start at $57,065.

The leaf springs are gone in favor of coilovers and trailing arms (two lower control arms, two upper) and not a track bar like we see in the Bronco, but rather a Watt’s Linkage:

The coil springs offer a number of advantages over leaf springs. One that I hear often has to do with how leaf springs are forced to couple their vertical stiffness (associated with ride quality) with lateral stiffness (associated with handling). In other words, if you want good handling, you need to stiffen your springs, but then you ruin your ride. But if you want a good ride, the springs have to be soft, and that means you have a floppy axle/compromised handling. Automakers have dialed-in leaf springs quite well by now, but coil springs tend to get better review scores when it comes to ride. Our suspension engineer Huibert Mees wrote “Why The New Ford Ranger And Toyota Tacoma Are Finally Offering Coil Springs And Why You Should Care,” for those of you who want to get into the nitty-gritty details of coil springs’ advantages of leaf springs. He also wrote “How The Ford Ranger Raptor’s ‘Watts Link’ Rear Suspension Works And Why It’s Not On Every Truck” to describe advantages (and disadvantages) of the Ranger Raptor’s rear suspension technology.

As for how it works, the axle’s fore-aft position and an axle’s tendency to want to twist are both locked in by two upper and two lower control arms going from the axle forward to the frame. Setting the axle’s lateral position is the Watt’s Link, which takes the place of a traditional track bar/panhard bar like that found in a Ford Bronco or Jeep Wrangler (that’s just a bar that goes from the frame, laterally down to the axle).

The Watts Link, animated in the clip above, allows the axle to travel essentially vertically instead of in an arc, and as I understand, that means you won’t have to worry about your rear end wanting to “steer” on its own depending upon where your axle is in its travel. I’m sure there are other advantages that a suspension engineer can enumerate for me in the comments; Ford just says the setup offers “control and confidence in off-road conditions.”

The way I see it, the engine and this rear suspension are what really set the Ranger apart. The damping tech, too, is important, too; Ford talks about the shocks, writing:

Ranger Raptor’s next-generation FOX™ 2.5-inch Live Valve Internal Bypass shocks are coil-overs at the front and piggyback reservoirs at the rear to reduce heat build-up for uninterrupted performance all day long.

The FOX™ Live Valve Internal Bypass system changes damping performance based on Ranger Raptor’s Drive Modes. The modes include Normal, Tow/Haul, Sport, Slippery, Off-Road, Rock Crawl, and Baja, all developed to provide better on-road comfort, off-road control, capability and ride quality at high and low speeds.

The suspension is clearly the most advanced in the class (it uses the same controller as the F-150; it has sensors that will notice when the truck is flying in the air, preparing the shocks for a landing). The Chevy Colorado ZR2 has fancy DSSV dampers from Multimatic, but the rear axle utilizes old-school leaf springs. The Jeep Gladiator has coil springs, but it has a solid front axle, which is inferior at high speeds off-road. And while the Tacoma has coils out back and independent front suspension, it doesn’t have damper technology like the Ford does.

What Is It Like To Drive?

OK, so the new Ranger Raptor does have a bit more power than the competition, and it has a trick suspension. But while other Ford Raptors stiff-armed the competition and remain in classes of their own, the Ranger Raptor is coming late to a crowded segment without an outwardly-obvious weapon (like 37-inch tires). Is that engine and that suspension enough to keep the Raptor name special?

Actually, yes. It is still special. It’s not quite as special as the F-150 Raptor or Bronco Raptor in that I don’t think it will distance itself as much from the rest of the trucks in its class, but it does have capabilities — particularly high speed ones — that I think set it apart.

The day started at the new Ranger Raptor Assault School (yes, it’s called an “assault” school) in Toole Valley, Utah, which is where future Ranger Raptor owners can partake in a one-day instructional program to see what their truck is capable of. (Ford offers a similar program for Bronco owners called the “Off-Rodeo”). After a walk around presentation from Justin Capicchiano, program supervisor in Australia, where the Ranger Raptor was developed and where it’s been on sale for over a year already (Ford makes it clear that the truck was “tailor[ed] to the needs of the North American customer”), we headed into the back of the main building, where we saw a lineup of Raptors:

I hopped into a gray truck, and was greeted by unique Ford Performance seats, with fun red accents all over the cabin. Like I said about the standard Ranger, the interior on this truck is OK; it’s not ornate, and the materials are not out of a Rolls Royce, but especially on the top-dog Raptor, it’s comfortable and nice enough.

Once I was inside the truck, a big garage door opened, and an extremely badass convoy of 405 horsepower mid-size Ford trucks hit the road.

Right away, I noticed that the Raptor seemed to ride better on-road than the standard leaf-sprung Ranger. Maybe it was a bit floatier, but it felt softer and more comfortable on the highway, at least based on my initial assessment.

It also felt faster; much faster. It still doesn’t offer “rip your face off” levels of acceleration — after all, 405 horsepower can only do so much with a truck that weighs as much as an aircraft carrier — but you can tear the rear tires loose and listen to those revs and those turbos as that 10-speed bangs off quick shifts and gets you out of the hole quickly.

When we arrived at the testing area, Ford broke journalists up into two groups: the off-road trail group and the rally group. I was in the latter one to start. This meant I was about to go fast.

Driving The Ranger Raptor Fast Off-Road

 

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Ford set up a few off-road race courses, highlighting boundaries and noting braking zones with cones. With the Ranger Raptor in Baja Mode — which is meant to reduce turbo lag, improve shifting for aggressive driving, and optimize the four-wheel drive system for high-speed fun — I hammered the throttle and worked my way through the courses, stabbing the brakes as I entered corners, loading up those front tires as the nose dove quickly and built up a mound of sand ahead to assist in the stop, then using that grip up front to turn the truck confidently.

I stomped the throttle pedal on my way out of the turn, noting that the tail began to kick out a bit, only to tuck back in as I flew away down the track, leaving that corner in my literal dust.

As I became more confident, I took the corners with more and more speed, grin stretching from cheek to cheek as the 3.0-liter twin-turbo V6 roared. Yes, roared.

This thing sounds good! And I’d heard the Ford Bronco Raptor before — a vehicle with the exact same powertrain. Maybe I wasn’t driving that Bronco Raptor as hard, or maybe there’s something different about the Ranger Raptor’s active exhaust tuning, but that 3.0-liter is actually exciting to listen to. It’s not a supercharged V8, but it’s a hell of a lot more fun to listen to than damn near any non-Italian, non-Infiniti V6 I’ve heard lately.

You can hear how much fun I had whipping that Ranger around the track here in this video:

 

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Throughout all the fast dirt-course driving, I noticed that Baja mode let me kick the tail out some, but traction control did kick in before I could drift as much as I really wanted to. Ford tells me I can turn off all the nannies completely and see if I have the skill to keep the truck on-course; I decided not to test that .

Ford even had us jump the Ranger Raptor— something the company has let me do three times before, once with the Bronco Raptor:

And twice with the F-150 Raptor:

The Ranger performed just as well as the other Raptors, which is to say: The landings were pillow-like.

Seriously, we were getting over a foot of air, and the thing returned to earth in a less dramatic fashion than most cars handle 15 mph speed bumps. It was legit.

I will say that some of the landings had me re-confirming my belief that this truck’s chin is too low, and that it needs 35s at least. Ford, of course, doesn’t sanction lifts, as it believes the Ranger Raptor is dialed in as it sits. Specifically, the company notes that the 33-inch tires were chosen to provide the vehicle with the right wheel travel to optimize off-road performance.

Lifting the truck to accommodate 35s, and trying to modify that fancy suspension/those trick dampers sounds expensive, but I know people are going to do it. The truck is a tire size off from having the right look.

Driving The Ranger Raptor Slow Off-Road

After all the high-speed driving, I headed to the low-speed off-road section, which was a rather easy course. Ford clearly prioritized the high-speed driving section of this media drive, and that makes sense; as the specs I mentioned before show, the Ranger Raptor is in the middle of the pack when it comes to geometry, and sets itself apart most via its power and its suspension’s high-speed capability.

That’s not to say the Ranger Raptor can’t get it done in the rocks. I mean, check out the rear axle flex; it ain’t bad:

The truck’s lockers are excellent, and activate quickly. In low range, the gearing allows for nice and controlled crawling, and the company’s “Trail Control” feature may be the best off-road cruise control system out there, letting you set the truck at 1.5 mph or 2 mph or whatever feels most comfortable.

With the Ranger Raptor, perhaps more so than with other vehicles, pure low-speed off-road capability will be geometry limited, because all the hardware to keep the truck going once those front tires are up on an obstacle are there — the great tires, the great lockers, the great off-road cruise control, the acceptable underbody protection (the fuel tank notwithstanding, though that’s tucked high and near the rear axle), the decent articulation. The truck does a good job going slow over technical obstacles, and a great job going fast in the desert.

Verdict

It’s not easy to draw a firm conclusion on a truck after just a day of driving, especially without piloting it side-by-side with its competition, but my biggest takeaway as someone skeptical of the Ranger Raptor’s ability to really pull away from its competitors is that: In high-speed off-road driving, it might just pull it off.

There are competitors that can probably outdo the Ranger on typical low-speed off-road trails, but the Ranger Raptor isn’t billed as a rock crawler. As Ford puts it, the F-150 Raptor is for Baja; the Bronco 4 is Ultra 4 inspired, meant largely for rock crawling; and the Ranger Raptor, probably appealing to younger, maybe single folks, is all about rally. And just scroll back up and watch me race that thing around the dirt and go off that jump: The thing’s got a suspension that can legitimately do that, and make sure the driver is having fun all the while.

It’s a fairly specific niche, I will admit, and I’m more of a rock-crawl person myself who would like the truck sitting a bit taller, but if I wanted a mid-size truck for banging around the desert at 60 mph, it’s possible the Ranger is, in keeping with previous Raptors, the leader of its segment. We’ll see when we get a few trucks out there head-to-head.