Fun Money: The 2023 Ford Raptor R Is Incredible But So Isn’t The Asking Price – Does It Deliver?


Fun Money: The 2023 Ford Raptor R Is Incredible But So Isn’t The Asking Price – Does It Deliver?

(By Tom Lohnes) – The third-generation Ford F-150 Raptor is an insane truck. With a massive widebody kit, long-travel FOX racing shocks, and a trombone-style loop in the exhaust to make it sound like a lifted Nissan GT-R, the newest Raptor is pretty much the best truck you can buy, if it wasn’t for Ram.You see, they took all of that, and then shoved a massive supercharged V8 under the hood, making possibly the most capable off-road truck we’ve ever seen in 2020. Well, Ford doesn’t like to be beaten, so they made pretty much a carbon copy of the TRX. Meet the 2023 Ford F-150 Raptor R.

Powered by a 5.2-liter supercharged “predator” V8, the F-150 Raptor R makes a whopping 700 horsepower and 640 lb-ft of twist, which is a big improvement from the 450/510 in the V6-equipped truck. Power goes through Ford’s standard 10R80 10-speed automatic transmission, and of course a 4-mode 4WD system is standard. Although power and torque are down compared to the TRX, Ford has somehow kept the Raptor R below three tons, so it weighs a good 500 pounds less than the Ram. Outside, Raptor R owners will be slightly disappointed because their truck that costs a $40,000 premium over the V6 truck looks pretty much exactly the same. Besides an R badge in the grille, different wheels, and an optional “Raptor” graphic with one of the Rs colored in orange, they are aesthetically the same. Thankfully, one startup will easily differentiate the two.

Inside, it is the same story. Sure, the top-spec Raptor it is based on is a nice truck, but when you’re paying 6-figures for a half-ton truck, you would probably expect something extra over the base truck. Either way, the Raptor R is still an extremely nice truck.

But, for $110,000 to start, you would expect it to be a nice truck. The only options are colors and no-cost graphics, but that is still a $20,000 premium over the absolute highest-spec TRX you can buy, which leaves Ram a lot of room to bring out an even better truck for the same price. Your move, Stellantis.


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3 thoughts on “Fun Money: The 2023 Ford Raptor R Is Incredible But So Isn’t The Asking Price – Does It Deliver?

  1. Robert

    The prices on many of these new truck is just mind blowing. Not just out of my league but I certainly would not want to go scratch them up off road like all the trucks I have had.

  2. Truckin' Ted

    Six fiqures for a Ford Truck? Yea, I don’t think I’ll ever see one in my driveway. When one considers the recent history of quality issues across several models, I think this borders on insanity.

    I suppose if you want to get one of the last pushrod Ford internal combustion engines, good luck.

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