Ford is a cool company. Of course I’m a Ford owner so someone somewhere reading this will cry about bias, but just take a look at what they’ve brought out in the last few years; The Focus ST. The Fiesta ST. Focus ST not fast enough? Here’s an RS. You’re a Mustang fan instead? New GT350. Plus a madder version, the 350R. Oh, and they brought back the GT too.
One after another new performance cars kept being introduced to their line-up and with the exception of the new GT (which has only recently started production) I have now been able to at least see all of them in person, as well as drive and work on a few of them. However, performance-oriented cars aren’t all that Ford offers of course. Do you need a truck but also want something a bit bonkers? They have something for you too, and that would be the Raptor.
Having previously worked at a Ford dealership I had the opportunity to drive numerous first-gen Raptors and while my passion mainly lies with cars I couldn’t help but start to really like them, and I have since. Because of this, when I found out that a brand-new 2017 model showed up at Advantage I had to go check it out as soon as possible.
Our days are currently rather short (because winter) so light was already fading when I got to the dealership, but I was able to grab some photos of the monster. This one was ordered with Shadow Black paint and the black leather interior; under the hood of course was the 3.5L V6 EcoBoost, paired to the 10-speed automatic transmission.
That last part is the one thing I wonder about admittedly. Having driven some 9-speed autos previously I wasn’t too impressed as all they did was change gears non-stop. I’d be curious to try out some newer 9- and 10-speed boxes to see how they feel and react.
Back to the point of this post though – the Raptor. Being a client’s vehicle I wasn’t able to look inside or under the hood but I will try to arrange/find an opportunity to do so with another Raptor when possible.
Regardless I was happy just to have a chance to look over a proper production version. The only example I had seen in person prior to this was a prototype at last year’s Auto Show.
Easily my favourite feature of the Raptors – of both generations – are the massively wide fenders. I especially like how their width is only emphasized around the lights, by the way they simply cut in towards them instead of gradually tapering in.
I know that by this point some of you reading this will be hoping to find out what the price was, so before wrapping up I’ll provide you with that; this example as optioned came to $73,999 with the base price for this bodystyle being $69,899. One of the options selected for this Raptor was the twin-panel moonroof, definitely a cool feature! Also of note is the fuel economy; the combined figure was 19mpg which is actually rather impressive!
So there it is, a quick look at the new 2017 Raptor! Since I took these photos I’ve seen that more have arrived in town so it likely won’t be long before we start spotting them out on the streets of Calgary. My neighbourhood and the surrounding areas seem to be home to a number of Raptors given how frequently I see them, so I’ll be keeping an eye out to see if anyone has moved into a second-gen model!
-Bill