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Ford Promotes Ranger Raptor With the Help Of Richard Hammond On DriveTribe

The DriveTribe channel has uploaded a video of Richard Hammond driving a few actors on the road and off-road in a Ranger Raptor, trying to make a business case for the Ford Performance pickup as the perfect truck for his midlife crisis. The question is, why does it read “ADVERTISEMENT FEATURE” in small font in the ending credits instead of the opening credits?
Is this the answer to Richard Hammond's mid-life crisis? 101 photos
Photo: screenshot from YouTube
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In a nutshell, the Blue Oval promoted the Ranger Raptor with the help of the British motoring journalist. While there’s nothing wrong with the video at first glance, Top Gear and The Grand Tour enthusiasts are aware that Richard feels a bit “robotic” in his delivery of the script, jokes and all.

A review on The Grand Tour would’ve felt a bit more genuine, but despite these hiccups in production, there’s no denying the Ranger Raptor is one badass workhorse. We’ve tested one near the city of Sibiu on a Red Bull Romaniacs course, and boy that was a lot of fun!

Regular Ranger models with either the 2.0-liter EcoBlue or 3.2-liter Duratorq had trouble keeping up with the leading Ranger Raptor, and that’s all down to the Fox shock absorbers, modified suspension, and reinforced chassis. The most surprising thing about this truck isn’t how capable Ford Performance made it for off-roading, but how comfy it is on regular roads.

In this regard, the Ranger Raptor is the perfect truck for a midlife crisis. Europeans don’t have any other alternative given that the F-150 Raptor isn’t sold in the Old Continent, and speaking of which, Ford has a few competitors in the United States in the guise of the Chevrolet Colorado ZR2 as well as the Toyota Tacoma TRD Pro and Jeep Gladiator Rubicon to some extent.

There’s a catch, however. The Ranger Raptor isn’t available in North America because the Blue Oval didn’t want to spend money on modifying the truck for this market. The EcoBlue too isn’t exactly the proper engine in the United States, not when the regular Ranger features the 2.3-liter EcoBoost with best-in-class torque, fuel economy, and towing capacity.

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About the author: Mircea Panait
Mircea Panait profile photo

After a 1:43 scale model of a Ferrari 250 GTO sparked Mircea's interest for cars when he was a kid, an early internship at Top Gear sealed his career path. He's most interested in muscle cars and American trucks, but he takes a passing interest in quirky kei cars as well.
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