2021 Ford Raptor: First Look

Hey my good friends, Sam Haymart for Case Driven TV. Today we're looking at the all-new, redesigned 2022 Ford F-150 Raptor. Yeah, the Raptor. With the redesign of the 2021 Ford F-150 has now come the redesigned Ford Raptor with a number of substantial improvements in styling and interior fitments, but more significant chassis upgrades and ultimately more power. The styling updates speak for themselves. Taking the re-skinned 2021 F-150 and beefing up the muscular width and girth, adding some abs and proportion is a task that Ford has more than proven themselves good at. All the expected new stuff is here, LED lighting all around, in addition to its amber LED spotter lights. It's fresh and handsome, but an evolution of the previous two generations. I will say, however, that its face resembles a gorilla now more than ever. Its cabin also gets all of the goodness of the 2021 F-150 line with hugely improved material quality, fit and finish, along with a better offering of technologies. At first blush, the new interior seems more businesslike and less Las Vegas SEMA style in its presentation. There is some extra flash, yes, but the emphasis seems more on the hardware like sport seats, steering wheel with paddle shifters and accessory switch gear. Where the news really is, is in its chassis improvements. Chief among them is a new coil sprung five link rear suspension. Losing its leaf springs means more suspension travel and articulation. With super long trailing arms and a panhard rod to keep the axle in place and 24 inch tall coil springs, you get a rear suspension travel of 15 inches to go along with the 14 inch travel offered up by the unique front independent suspension. Adding to this new bone structure are a new generation of Fox live valve electronically variable internal bypass shocks. The massive 3.1 inch diameter anodized shocks look awesome, of course, but what they do actually means everything. With various data point readings, they can independently adjust damping rates at each corner up to 500 times per second to respond to changing terrain, driver inputs and changes in momentum. You know, like jumping and stuff. Add in the buyer's option of either 35 inch or 37 inch tires and the Raptor has improved capabilities when it comes to attacking terrain with up to 13.1 inches of ground clearance and the best angles of approach at 33.1 degrees, a 24.9 degree departure angle and a 24.4 degree break over. What Ford didn't elaborate on is power. Raptor will come with a third generation high output 3.5 liter EcoBoost twin turbo V6 and 10 speed automatic with a fully controlled four wheel drive system as before, but with increased performance. Exactly what that means, Ford hasn't said. Expect a little more than before is my best prediction. Making it sound more appealing, perhaps less like a weed eater on acid, is the new three inch equal length exhaust system that has a trombone loop to give it equal length ahead of the also new pass through muffler. Added two or computer controlled active valves in an X-pipe, you can now set your sound to quiet, normal, sport and Baja. In the reveal, they also spoke of a Raptor Articum later, which has been rumored to have a force induced V8 that can run with the likes of the hellish Ram TRX. We'll see. We do know now, however, that the Raptor will now only be available in one configuration, a super crew cab with 145 inch wheelbase. The super cab is gone. Maximum payload does increase to fourteen hundred pounds and max towing to eighty two hundred pounds. Beyond these notable things, the new Ford Raptor brings with it all of the too long to list your slate of new technologies and creature comforts that made their debut on the twenty twenty one F-150. As before, the new Raptor will roll off the line at Ford's Dearborn truck plant and will go on sale this summer with pricing to be announced closer to that time. Man, I got to tell you, Ford is the best at holding out, holding out the goods, keeping it close to the vest. How much horsepower does it have? How much torque does it have? Where's the V8 and what's it going to be? That's what we all want to know. That's what you wanted to know. And we're not going to get to know it till later. That's what Ford does. They make you wait for it. In all seriousness, I like it. I think this is really going to be a game changer with this new rear suspension, that multi-link suspension coil springs. That's going to give this thing a lot more articulation, a lot more maneuverability, I think, out there if you really are more into the rock crawling than the beating the thing to death at high speed on the Baja. So I'm looking forward to driving it and seeing how it compares to the old ones. And they were pretty good, too. So until that time, click right here. See my latest video or better yet, click down there and subscribe to my YouTube channel. Either way, stay tuned.