2017 Ford Raptor with Ken Block: Meet the World's Best Flying Truck!
On this high-flying episode of Ignition presented by Tire Rack
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MotorTranscript
00:00 (dramatic music)
00:02 - Hi there, I'm driving the all new 2017 Ford Raptor.
00:20 At Motor Trend, we are all about testing.
00:23 As such, we're gonna present to you
00:25 the most thorough episode of ignition ever.
00:28 (engine revving)
00:31 Firstly, I am so excited that that old 6.2 liter
00:35 boat anchor V8 engine is gone,
00:37 replaced by a 3.5 liter twin turbo EcoBoost engine
00:41 that, when paired to the all new
00:43 10 speed automatic transmission,
00:45 results in seriously improved MPGs.
00:48 Just kidding, nobody cares about fuel economy.
00:51 (engine revving)
00:54 (dramatic music)
00:57 (engine revving)
01:00 (dramatic music)
01:08 One of the things I love most about the Raptor
01:26 is that it looks like it can survive the apocalypse.
01:29 Welcome to California City,
01:34 the world's first pre-apocalyptic, post-apocalypse town.
01:37 After futzing around with the navigation,
01:41 I was ready to explore California's third largest city.
01:45 Third largest by area, of course.
01:47 - Please proceed to the highlighted route
01:49 and then the route guidance will start.
01:52 - Just gonna look to the right.
01:54 Okay, don't see anybody coming for about 30 months.
01:58 Here we go.
01:59 (engine revving)
02:03 Back to the engine.
02:11 While we may not care about fuel economy,
02:13 what we do care about is that power is up.
02:16 From 375 horsepower to 450.
02:21 Torque is also up from 470 to 510 pound feet.
02:25 But more importantly, because the engine's turbocharged,
02:27 that torque is available earlier and for longer.
02:30 - Turn right onto Bucknell Road.
02:33 (engine revving)
02:36 - Now we have to talk about sound.
02:38 And of course a lot of people are gonna say,
02:39 oh, it doesn't have a V8, I don't like how it sounds.
02:42 And while it's always true that a naturally aspirated V8
02:45 is gonna sound better than a twin turbo V6,
02:48 this one sounds pretty good.
02:49 (engine revving)
02:52 So if you're the guy that won't buy this Raptor
02:55 because you don't like the way it sounds,
02:56 well, you're the dude who thinks
02:58 laser discs are better than VHS.
03:00 Congratulations.
03:01 And I hope you enjoy watching Ishtar for the 500th time.
03:04 - Turn left onto Bucknell Street.
03:06 (engine revving)
03:09 - 'Cause the thing is, with the exception of sound,
03:14 this truck is better in every single way.
03:17 For instance, the transmission.
03:19 Gone is the old six-speed,
03:21 replaced by this 10-speed automatic,
03:23 which has been co-developed by Ford and General Motors.
03:25 - Turn right.
03:26 (engine revving)
03:29 - 'Cause just like the ZL1, gears eight through 10,
03:37 those are overdrive gears.
03:38 So on the highway at 80 miles an hour,
03:40 the engine's spinning at 2,100 RPMs,
03:42 which will give you better fuel economy.
03:44 But what I like about it is that gears one through six
03:47 are super tightly spaced.
03:49 (engine revving)
03:52 Like all Ford trucks,
03:54 the body of this Raptor is made from aluminum,
03:56 and that makes it light.
03:57 How light?
03:58 Well, this particular truck is 319 pounds lighter
04:02 than the last SuperCrew Raptor we weighed.
04:04 Now, if you look at the panels individually
04:06 compared to the old steel ones,
04:07 they're probably about 700 pounds lighter.
04:10 And I would bet that this V6
04:12 is a little bit lighter than the V8.
04:14 So how come this truck is only 300 pounds lighter?
04:17 My guess, this frame.
04:19 It is so beefy.
04:21 And I'm sure you've all seen videos on YouTube
04:23 of people jumping their Raptors and bending the frames.
04:26 This frame's not gonna bend.
04:28 And as you'll see by the end of the video,
04:29 this frame's not gonna bend.
04:31 Of course, if you do bend your Raptor frame,
04:33 it's not my fault.
04:34 - In one tenth of a mile, turn right onto Bursal Street.
04:38 (engine revving)
04:42 - And this truck should jump better.
04:44 Why?
04:44 Because the Fox Racing gas bypass shocks
04:47 are not only bigger and beefier,
04:48 but they have more travel front to rear.
04:50 But what may be the most impressive part
04:54 about this new Raptor is how technology
04:56 actually makes it more capable.
04:58 Talking about two things specifically.
05:00 The first is Ford has inserted another all-wheel drive mode
05:04 between two high and four high.
05:06 It's called four automatic.
05:08 And what it does is when the rear wheels detect slippage,
05:11 it'll automatically send as much torque as needed
05:13 up to the front.
05:15 - In 400 feet, turn left.
05:17 (engine revving)
05:19 - Also cool is that in addition
05:23 to your normal off-road modes like mud and sand
05:25 or rock crawling or whatever,
05:27 you have two unique modes.
05:28 The first is sport mode, sharper throttle response,
05:31 holds the gears longer, locks you out of the upper gears,
05:33 and has a very cool sport traction control mode,
05:36 which lets the rear end slide around a little bit.
05:39 Then there's Baja mode.
05:40 And Baja mode is essentially an all-wheel drive version
05:43 of sport mode, including a Baja traction mode.
05:47 Of course, the best way to drive your Raptor
05:49 is just to leave it in sport mode
05:51 and turn every nanny all the way off.
05:53 - Turn left now.
05:54 (engine revving)
05:57 Turn right onto Bucknell Road.
06:05 (engine revving)
06:07 In one tenth of a mile, turn left onto Harvey Drive.
06:13 (engine revving)
06:15 In 400 feet, turn right.
06:20 (engine revving)
06:22 You have arrived at your destination on the right.
06:32 - I'm sitting here on a dry lake bed
06:40 because I wanna see how fast this Raptor can go
06:43 in the dirt.
06:45 If memory serves, the previous Raptor
06:47 was limited to 100 miles an hour.
06:50 We're gonna see what this one can do.
06:51 So to do that, I have manual mode for the transmission.
06:54 The truck itself is in sport mode.
06:56 Gonna use the paddle shifters to shift.
06:59 And here we go.
07:00 (engine revving)
07:02 This thing can hit 60 miles an hour in just over five seconds
07:07 but for a truck, it's ridiculous.
07:09 On dirt, you don't have a lot of traction
07:11 so we're going a little slower.
07:12 However, 60 miles an hour right now.
07:15 (engine revving)
07:17 I'm shifting at 6,000 RPM, 500 shorter red line.
07:26 80 miles an hour.
07:27 Foot is to the floor.
07:31 90 miles an hour, shift again, six gear.
07:34 95.
07:35 100 miles an hour.
07:38 105 miles an hour, so it's faster.
07:41 107 miles an hour.
07:47 107 miles an hour.
07:50 107 miles an hour, okay.
07:58 The 2017 Raptor is limited on the dirt to 107 miles an hour.
08:03 Actually, it's limited on the road too.
08:08 Okay, I'm running out of leg band.
08:10 I'm gonna slow this down.
08:12 And just like that, we're no longer moving.
08:16 Okay, now I'm gonna do some donuts because.
08:20 (engine revving)
08:23 While it's important to always cover your film crew
08:38 with as much dirt and dust as possible,
08:40 no Raptor episode would be complete
08:43 without Hold My Beer style jumping.
08:45 Welcome to Dumont Dunes, an 8,000 acre sandy playground
08:50 right outside of Death Valley.
08:52 Now, as much as I love jumping cars,
08:55 I literally have no experience jumping trucks off sand dunes.
08:59 So I called Ford and said,
09:00 "Hey, could you send down an expert
09:01 "to show me the ropes?"
09:03 They're sending someone named Kenneth,
09:05 who is probably an engineer from Michigan
09:08 or some sort of Baja 1000 mechanic.
09:10 Yeah, here comes Kenneth now.
09:14 Moving pretty aggressively.
09:16 Of course, it's a Raptor.
09:17 You do aggressive things in them.
09:19 And wow, look at that.
09:21 Here he comes.
09:24 He's not slowing down.
09:26 (dramatic music)
09:29,
09:57 Oh, you're Kenneth.
10:00 Kenneth Block.
10:01 Dude, what a treat.
10:03 So you're the dune expert Ford sent.
10:06 - Yeah, a little bit of experience
10:09 in the dunes growing up in Southern California.
10:10 - Oh yeah, you're not just Mr. Drift-O?
10:13 - No, I have a little more skill than just that.
10:14 - Okay, cool.
10:15 Well, my Raptor or yours?
10:17 - Well, I do love the color of the gray,
10:21 but man, I really like that color.
10:23 - The avalanche looks sweet.
10:24 Wanna do this?
10:25 - Yes, sir.
10:26 - Let's go.
10:27 (tires screeching)
10:28 Is that really what you're wearing today?
10:30 - Yeah.
10:30 - Sure.
10:32 For those of you who don't know who Ken Block is,
10:35 Google him.
10:36 The long and short of it is, this man can jump.
10:39 The first obstacle we named the whoops,
10:43 as in whoopty-doos, not whoops, we made a mistake.
10:47 Though at 90 miles an hour, it kind of felt that way.
10:49 Cool, all right.
10:52 Hey, let me just get a quick selfie of us for my boss.
10:54 - Sure.
10:55 - All right, man.
10:56 (engine revving)
10:59 (laughing)
11:01 Okay.
11:11 (laughing)
11:14 I like how you're just skimming over the tops of them.
11:21 (engine revving)
11:24 Sideways.
11:26 (laughing)
11:27 Through the whoops.
11:28 - Oh yeah.
11:29 - That's the best way, right?
11:30 (engine revving)
11:32 How fast should we go then?
11:39 - I don't know.
11:40 (laughing)
11:42 - Then it was on to the jumps.
11:47 Remember when I told you the frame wouldn't bend?
11:49 I wasn't lying.
11:51 (engine revving)
11:53 (laughing)
12:07 Nice.
12:13 (laughing)
12:16 Yeah.
12:16 (engine revving)
12:19 Nice.
12:27 - Nice.
12:28 - My favorite section was this empty
12:35 swimming pool-like formation Ken found
12:37 about 400 feet up a dune.
12:39 It was simply surreal, like riding a cloud
12:43 down a roller coaster.
12:45 It is so bizarre in here.
12:46 (laughing)
12:48 This is amazing.
12:49 If there's a car guy equivalent to Dogtown and Z-Boys,
12:53 this was it.
12:54 (engine revving)
12:57 (dramatic music)
13:00 (laughing)
13:18 (dramatic music)
13:25 (engine revving)
13:28 I'm trying to describe, it's dreamlike.
13:34 This thing rides so soft 'cause there's so much travel.
13:38 And just the horizon is changing so radically.
13:41 All sand, all sky, and then we're at this angle,
13:44 we're at that angle.
13:46 (engine revving)
13:49 (dramatic music)
13:51 Oh dude, no way.
14:03 We're not going up that.
14:04 - You don't think we can?
14:05 (dramatic music)
14:08 - Uh, I'd kind of rather not.
14:12 (laughing)
14:13 - I think we should try.
14:14 (dramatic music)
14:17 (engine revving)
14:20 Okay.
14:31 (engine revving)
14:34 Jesus.
14:37 (laughing)
14:39 Oh.
14:40 (engine revving)
14:43 (dramatic music)
14:46 Whoa.
14:52 (dramatic music)
14:55 Whoa, we're up it.
14:56 (dramatic music)
14:58 Dude.
14:59 (screaming)
15:01 No way.
15:02 (dramatic music)
15:05 (engine revving)
15:08 (laughing)
15:18 It was actually a lot more fun on the way down
15:23 than I thought it would be.
15:24 - Yeah, yeah.
15:25 - That was awesome. - It's actually pretty smooth
15:26 coming down.
15:26 - Yeah, that was sweet.
15:28 Here's a fact I didn't know about Ken Block.
15:30 He's a terrible passenger.
15:33 You're probably not a passenger very much, are you?
15:34 - No.
15:35 (laughing)
15:36 No.
15:37 Do not like being passenger.
15:40 (laughing)
15:42 (engine revving)
15:45 Did not know I somehow agreed to doing this.
15:51 - Well, they came back and said you approved the script,
15:54 so you know.
15:54 - I didn't approve the script.
15:56 - Okay.
15:57 (engine revving)
16:00 - That's enough, right?
16:01 - Did we?
16:02 - She's driven enough?
16:03 - Well, I mean, you wanna go up the dune a little bit,
16:05 right?
16:06 Just wanna check this thing out.
16:07 (engine revving)
16:10 Good?
16:14 (laughing)
16:17 Like I said, did not agree to this one.
16:22 (laughing)
16:25 - Come on.
16:26 - I think I might be sick.
16:28 How much longer do you get this driving portion?
16:32 - Well, I mean, it is my show.
16:34 It's to flatten your gas at all.
16:36 (engine revving)
16:39 Pretty good brakes.
16:47 (sighing)
16:51 (laughing)
16:53 Well, ladies and gentlemen,
16:55 that's the all new Ford Raptor in a nutshell.
16:58 Donuts, drifts, burnouts, jumps, you name it,
17:01 it can do it.
17:02 The last generation Raptor was my favorite truck ever
17:05 and the new one's even better.
17:07 If you have a chance, buy one.
17:10 Right, Ken?
17:11 - Right.
17:12 Got it.
17:13 (laughing)
17:15 (upbeat music)
17:17 (upbeat music)
17:20 (upbeat music)
17:23 (engine revving)