Join Technical Director Frank Markus as he gets an early first look at the new Ford Raptor. Can Ford's desert machine compete with the fire-breathing RAM 1500 TRX?
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00:00 I'm Frank Marcus with Motor Trend, and I'm here getting an early look at the 2021 Ford F-150 Raptor.
00:06 Ford introduced the concept of a factory desert racer with the 2010 Raptor.
00:17 This is the third generation of the Raptor, and significantly, it's the first generation of Raptor
00:23 that faces serious competition in the form of the Ram 1500 TRX, which won the 2021 Motor Trend Truck of the Year.
00:32 Now, Ford's response to the TRX is going to be twofold in this one, or maybe three.
00:38 For the 2021 Raptor, the powertrain is largely unchanged, except for some emissions changes and a tricky new exhaust.
00:47 It's called the trombone exhaust, where they equalize the length of the two paths of the exhaust with this funny loop that goes around.
00:54 It really changes the sound of the exhaust. It may pay off in a few horsepower and torque,
00:59 we'll figure that out in a couple weeks. But the sound, what we've heard of it so far, is almost like a V8.
01:06 In the back, the rear suspension switches from leaf springs to a coil sprung, five-link live axle suspension.
01:15 Much better suspension articulation, much more travel, about an inch more than before, and an inch more than the base TRX.
01:24 Front suspension is also updated with the increased suspension travel.
01:29 Basically, this thing is even better sorted for bounding through the desert and pounding off of big jumps and so forth.
01:37 Let's take a walk around of the exterior of the new Ford F-150 Raptor.
01:41 Now, we're looking at a Raptor 37. It has a completely different frame, and it is all tailored to fit these 37-inch diameter tires.
01:50 Those are the largest ones available on any factory passenger vehicle.
01:55 They give you a much bigger ground clearance, a little bit less suspension travel because they're so much bigger, they run into things.
02:04 But they get their own unique wheel here, a 17-inch wheel with a beadlock capability.
02:10 The vents on the fender and the hood are meant to evoke the look of a F-22 Raptor fighter jet.
02:18 Once again, this time we have flared fenders, but with a hair drawing here.
02:24 And we moved the side marker lights to the fender flares, front and rear.
02:30 Around the back, to make it look more wide, we've got a new applique with wider Ford letters.
02:38 Same thing happens in the front. This is a unique new bumper designed to accommodate that 37-inch spare tire that fits underneath.
02:45 All Raptors will get that bumper setup.
02:48 The interior is also changed along with the 2021 Ford F-150. Let's have a look in there.
03:04 The 2021 F-150 Raptor will be available with three different interiors, a base series, a high series, and an accent series.
03:12 This, you might not be surprised to learn, is the accent series. It comes with the 37 package of the larger wheels and tires.
03:20 It is the top of the line. These are the Recaro seats in Lightspeed Blue.
03:26 They feature orange stitching on the steering wheel and on the seats and on the center marker on the steering wheel.
03:35 We get a unique carbon package, which puts carbon on the dash and on the door panels.
03:41 And there is another carbon package available on the lesser series, but it is not this one. It will not look exactly like this.
03:47 The American flag details on the edges of the dash are also in orange.
03:53 And we're up to the large screen, the base option on Raptors will get that.
03:59 You also get a big, giant 12-inch digital cluster standard on the Raptor.
04:04 So it's a pretty nice interior. It also features all the other F-150 things, like the fold-down shifter, like the flip-over work surface.
04:13 We also get lovely metal shift paddles to operate the 10-speed automatic transmission.
04:21 So that's it for the 2021 Ford F-150 Raptor. It goes on sale this summer at prices that probably won't change terribly much from what we've been seeing before.
04:30 In a year from now, they're going to introduce a Raptor R. We expect that one to take on the Ram 1500 TRX more directly.
04:40 They aren't saying anything about the powertrain yet, but we're expecting to see a transplant of the supercharged V8 from the Shelby Mustang GT500 retuned for truck duty.
04:52 Let's keep our fingers crossed. I'm Frank Marcus with Motor Trend.
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