The all-new Bronco has to be one of the best car debuts of the past decade. But despite Ford giving us three juicy versions of this SUV, something is still missing. People desperately want a Raptor version of the amazing retro vehicle.
Ford already has two Raptors, one based on the F-150 and another derived from its little brother, the Ranger. At this point, it's not 100% clear if a Bronco Raptor will exist, as one of our sources suggests a new performance nameplate will be introduced, the Warthog.
While the Raptor trucks surf sand dunes like a Baja buggy, a Warthog would climb rocks with the Jeep rivals. But a Raptor by any other name would be just as sweet. In the powertrain department, the hardcore rig is supposed to have the 3.0-liter EcoBoost with about 400 horsepower, 90 more than the 2.7-liter V6 Ford now offers.
In case you're wondering, the 3.0-liter is a turbo-6, like the one you'd find in today's Explorer ST. But a desert or trail-rated Bronco would also need suspension with lots of room to travel, large tires, and probably some cool wheels.
In case you forgot, we already had a Bronco R race prototype previewing everything at the Baja 1000 last year. This featured custom Fox shocks and up to 18 inches of suspension travel. And whatever tech Ford develops for this project might also trickle down to the next Ranger Raptor.
In this video, YouTube artist explores not only how a high-performance Bronco might look, but also what Raptor styling stands for. As you probably guessed, he points out the widebody look, meaty grille, and upgrades in the suspension and wheels departments.
Implementing those on a Bronco 5-door means we get some serious digital modifications. But it's not quite a Raptor, at least in the grille department, not that we're complaining.
Mihnea's favorite cars have already been built, the so-called modern classics from the '80s and '90s. He also loves local car culture from all over the world, so don't be surprised to see him getting excited about weird Japanese imports, low-rider VWs out of Germany, replicas from Russia or LS swaps down in Florida. Full profile
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