2012 Ford F-150 SVT Raptor: King of the Sandbox - Ignition Episode 29 - video Dailymotion

MotorTrend

On this episode of Ignition

Transcript

00:00 [MUSIC PLAYING]

00:02 So here we have the monstrous and totally fantastic

00:29 Ford Raptor.

00:30 I mean, this is the big wheels truck we all

00:31 dreamed of owning as kids.

00:33 We're here at the test track, and I

00:35 could go over the test numbers and tell you

00:37 that it takes less than seven seconds to hit 60,

00:40 that it's pretty slow around our figure eight course.

00:42 But I'll ask, does that really matter?

00:44 I say no.

00:50 So this week, we're going to forget the whole ignition

00:53 testing regimen, and we're going to go have some fun.

00:55 We're going to go off road.

00:57 Now, unfortunately, in order to do that,

00:59 we have to travel for a few hours in LA traffic.

01:03 But that's actually proved a bit interesting,

01:05 because these past few hours have

01:07 shown that while this truck is incredible off road,

01:11 it's pretty good on the road, too.

01:13 I mean, sure, it's over a half a foot wider than an F-150,

01:18 but it's easy to place in your lane.

01:19 It has tons of great outward visibility.

01:21 And the ride-- I mean, why didn't anybody ever tell me

01:24 about the ride in this thing?

01:26 These Fox racing shocks do a wonderful job

01:28 of soaking up all the imperfections in the road,

01:31 making it feel really comfortable.

01:33 I mean, it's still a truck.

01:34 You're not going to get Bentley levels of comfort

01:36 out of this thing.

01:37 But it's very nice.

01:39 And when you're off road, you have 11.2 inches

01:42 of suspension travel in the front

01:43 and 12.1 inches of suspension travel in the rear.

01:46 I mean, that's the beauty of this truck.

01:48 It's the best of both worlds.

01:50 You have wheels that can be converted to beadlock,

01:53 but then you also have navigation, satellite radio,

01:55 iPod hookup, heated and cooled seats.

01:58 It's truly amazing.

01:59 [MUSIC PLAYING]

02:03 [MUSIC PLAYING]

02:07 [MUSIC PLAYING]

02:10 [MUSIC PLAYING]

02:13 See, that's the beautiful thing about the Raptor,

02:40 is that it's a serviceable daily driver,

02:43 as much as any full-size truck can be.

02:46 But then it just has these incredible off-road

02:48 capabilities.

02:51 It's the equivalent of the sports car

02:53 that you can drive every day to work,

02:55 and then take to the racetrack and be just fine.

02:58 This is like the 911 of off-road trucks.

03:01 It gives you all the controls you could possibly want.

03:04 You can shift to four high on the fly.

03:06 You can lock the diff by pulling this little knob here.

03:08 There's an off-road mode that we're in right now,

03:10 which lessens the intervention of the ABS system

03:13 and changes the throttle mapping and the shift patterns.

03:16 It makes the truck really controllable in the sandwash

03:20 like we're in right now.

03:21 And it has all the right hardware.

03:27 We have a Torsen differential up front,

03:30 a locking limited slip in the rear,

03:32 those just magical Fox Racing shocks

03:35 that make this thing ride so nicely on the road,

03:38 give it just total control off-road.

03:42 And this 6.2 liter V8 with its 411 horsepower and 434

03:48 pound feet of torque is the perfect engine

03:50 for this kind of stuff.

03:52 It has power everywhere in the rev range.

03:56 And it allows you to get away with some pretty wild stuff.

04:01 And that's the thing.

04:02 This makes off-roading really easy and really accessible.

04:06 It's not a difficult truck to drive or power slide off-road.

04:11 It's easy to point and steer, easy to drive.

04:14 Pedal feel is all right.

04:16 And it doesn't surprise you with any weird shifts

04:18 or any weird electronic intervention.

04:21 I can't express why this is so much fun.

04:26 It's just sort of like deep down,

04:29 it's like a childhood sensation of just going really fast

04:33 and something really big and heavy that

04:34 makes a lot of noise, that you're

04:36 sliding all over the place.

04:38 I'd love to commute on a road like this.

04:42 Yeah, that's really the beauty of off-road trucks

04:44 is when you find a good off-road area

04:46 and you can really start throwing them around,

04:48 they make you say like, hey, that's

04:50 a pretty cool looking sand wash over there.

04:53 I wonder how fast I could drive through it.

04:55 Or hey, that's a pretty neat mountain you got up there.

04:58 I want to be on top of it.

04:59 And you can, thanks to all the hardware in this truck.

05:02 One of the cool standard features on this year's Raptor

05:05 is a bead-locking wheel, or at least a wheel

05:07 that can be converted to bead-lock,

05:08 so long as you buy a kit through Ford Racing.

05:11 Now what bead-locking does is it literally

05:13 locks the tire to the rim, so that if you're airing pressures

05:17 down, if you're going through the sand or whatever,

05:19 you don't have to worry about the tire losing traction

05:21 with the rim itself or slipping at all.

05:23 It's a very cool feature for the more hardcore folk.

05:30 One of the cool things that Ford added to the Raptor

05:32 is this optional front camera.

05:34 It's put in the grill.

05:35 And when you're doing some climbing at low speeds,

05:37 sometimes it's difficult to see over the hood.

05:39 Well, this here allows you to check out exactly what's

05:42 in front of the truck.

05:44 This is by no means a serious hill,

05:46 but it's a good demonstration of how the screen works.

05:49 And the truck tackled that no problem.

05:53 We probably could have done that in two-wheel drive.

05:55 [ENGINE REVVING]

05:57 [LAUGHS]

05:59 This is like when you were a little kid.

06:02 I'm talking really little, like where you still

06:05 have difficulty finding the right place to crap.

06:08 The funnest thing you could do was charge through sandboxes

06:12 and just destroy everything in your path.

06:15 That's what this feels like.

06:16 [ENGINE REVVING]

06:18 [LAUGHS]

06:19 Woo-hoo-hoo-hoo!

06:20 Woo-hoo-hoo-hoo!

06:21 [LAUGHS]

06:28 What's so impressive is that the Raptor doesn't

06:30 sacrifice street capability.

06:32 In fact, its suspension upgrades make it a smoother driving

06:35 truck.

06:36 The light to moderate off-roading

06:38 we did only scratched the surface of the Raptor's talent.

06:41 And yet, it was some of the most fun

06:43 I've had in a truck with my pants on.

06:45 It's addicting, really, the way this truck urges you to seek

06:48 out things and conquer them.

06:50 Go ahead, it says.

06:51 Power slide through the dirt.

06:53 Climb mountains.

06:56 You know, I'll just say something really quick.

06:59 The indicator of a good car-- and this

07:01 is true for every car I've ever driven--

07:03 whenever they put this little notch

07:06 in the center of the steering wheel,

07:08 that means you're in a car that's going to be good.

07:11 Because when you're power sliding around

07:13 and doing opposite lock and all kinds of fun stuff,

07:15 you sometimes forget where dead center is.

07:17 And you don't want to fishtail out of a corner.

07:21 That's a nice little touch.

07:22 Anyone has that?

07:24 Audi.

07:25 Didn't they have it?

07:26 R8?

07:27 R8 has that.

07:28 R8 has a notch.

07:29 911 has a notch.

07:30 Yeah, that was--

07:32 Every good car has that little notch.

07:35 I think 458 has that notch, too.

07:37 You know what's house that notch?

07:38 F-150 Raptor.

07:40 You know what's house that notch?

07:41 F-150 Raptor.

07:42 Yep.

2012 Ford F-150 SVT Raptor: King of the Sandbox - Ignition Episode 29

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