Ford Ranger Raptor long-term test

The car Ford Ranger Raptor 2.0 EcoBlue 210 4WD auto | Run by Max Edleston, senior photographer

Why it’s here To provide grin-inducing entertainment and practicality in equal measure

Needs to be Unstoppable on-road or off-it, reasonably sensible to run, and practical enough to be used as a working vehicle

Mileage 23,511 List price £57,064 Target Price £57,064 Price as tested £59,824 Test economy 26.8mpg Official economy 25.4mpg Dealer price now £42,063 Private price now £37,289 Running costs (excl. depreciation) £5864 (fuel) £455 (service)

9 December 2024 – A car for all seasons

Robbie Williams may have sung about ‘a man for all seasons,’ but if he’d been inclined to croon about a car rather than a person, I reckon he’d have been singing about my Ford Ranger Raptor. You see, after eight months and more than 20,000 miles covered behind the wheel, this sporty pick-up truck has gone. And now I feel bereft of its many talents, which made themselves known across all four seasons during the past year. In a very literal sense, it conquered everything in my world.

When I began my time with the Raptor in mid-March, the Spring sunshine provided the perfect backdrop to weekend getaways in my car. Indeed, it wasn’t long before my partner and I ventured out into the Cheshire countryside with our camping gear. And we had no problem loading it all into the Raptor’s load bay, which, despite not being able to match the regular Ford Ranger pick-up by carrying a tonne of weight, still had plenty of space for our trip. And when I returned to work, I never came close to filling up the Raptor –  despite regularly travelling with the kind of payload which would make a concert technician wince.

With the summer sun beating down, I took every opportunity to take the Ranger Raptor off-road, whether down rutted farmer’s tracks in search of the perfect camping spot, or up dusty trails and ridges to get the perfect angle for my next photoshoot. 

The Raptor took it all in its stride, helped by the plethora of assistance systems designed for off-road driving. On leaving the Tarmac, I’d invariably switch the Raptor from two-wheel to four-wheel drive and select the correct driving mode for the terrain, whether it be mud, snow, sand or otherwise.

The result was near-unstoppable progress. I say near, because there was one situation where my Raptor became stuck in a waterlogged field and required the services of a neighbour’s tractor to get back onto solid ground. Looking back, though, I think this was more driver error than the truck’s fault, because anyone looking out onto the swampy field that morning should have known it was impassable to anyone not driving a tractor.

In fact, it’s only now, with the temperature plummeting towards winter, that the Raptor has presented me with any real problems. I left my parents’ house in rural Cheshire one frosty morning to find snow and ice on the ground, and, less helpfully, frozen over the top of the electric roll cover which had hitherto done such a good job of keeping my camera kit away from prying eyes. 

It seemed the mechanism had frozen shut with the cold, and it took some defrosting and scraping to get it open again. And since that moment, it’s refused to operate via the Raptor’s keyfob, which means I need to open the tailgate to get it open. 

Other niggles? Well, I’d have appreciated a few more lashing points in the Raptor, because when I was travelling with anything other than a full load, my bags and cases would wander about the load bay in transit, causing rattles and scrapes to be heard in the cab. And when I was stuck in city traffic, the Raptor’s sheer size meant that small cars which came to a halt behind me sometimes couldn’t be seen, which took some getting used to.

But that’s it. And none of those niggles stopped me from pushing limits with my Raptor, whether that was using it to fulfill a childhood ambition of driving along the beach, or answering a steady stream of pleas from friends and family to help them move everything from barn feed to barrels. Yes, as a working vehicle, my pick-up has put in a shift.

It’s also been surprisingly frugal, with my final economy figure of 26.8mpg slightly beating the official WLTP result. 

I adored my time with the Ranger Raptor, for all the things it allowed me to do and for the ease at which it tackled every journey. It allowed me to live out a childhood dream of owning a pick-up truck, and provided fun, frugality and family friendly practicality in equal measure.

Like the very best dreams, then, this is one which I don’t want to wake up from.

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