Ford Raptor: The Ferrari of Off-Road Pickups

How many people are in the market for a full-size, four-wheel-drive pickup that can top triple digits off-road while still providing an uncannily smooth ride? And features heated seats, a 10-speaker audio system, and a lux interior with dual-zone climate control? And gets a fuel efficiency rating of ... who really cares?

Well, if you're talking about the Ford F-150 SVT Raptor, the answer is at least 1,500. That's about how many orders FoMoCo has taken on its new high-performance pickup, a number that has the Dearborn Truck Plant building Raptors at maximum capacity.

There's no question the Raptor is a serious piece of machinery. On the other hand, there were plenty of questions about whether now is the right time to be building a vehicle like this; everybody's supposed to be more interested in wonder cars like the 230-mpg Chevrolet Volt. Even when the Raptor concept first popped up, people (press people, that is) wondered if the sports-truck segment had gone the way of this Ford's Cretaceous Period namesake. (Okay, maybe the Ford is named after the birds, but that wouldn't have been as funny here.)

Anyway, what Ford has done with the Raptor is actually sidestep that issue by emphasizing the pickup's truck-like characteristics instead of trying to turn it into Mustang with a cargo bed. I mean, the Raptor will win its share of stoplight drag races, but that's a really just a side effect of its desert-racer — read "truck-based" — personality. The Raptor remains a truck, with Ford swearing to Off-Road magazine that the vehicle "will still be able to transport your toys, trailer or lumber."

This subtly shifts the argument further in Ford's favor. The Raptor isn't a sports-car chassis with a truck body stuck on for looks, offering the worst of both worlds. It's a small-run, purpose-built vehicle designed to allow people to get some big thrills off road. In that sense, it's more like a speedboat or private jet — vehicles that offer a certain kind of experience pretty much completely outside of standard transportation needs. (In technical terms, this experience is called "fun.")

And you'll notice that you don't hear too much in the press about the fuel consumption of speedboats and private jets. Or snowmobiles and ATVs. Or, of course, Ferraris and Bentleys.

Now, if you're a regular reader of Krome on Cars, you can probably see where this is going: While fuel-efficiency fanatics always carp about the poor mileage of pickups, they never seem to do the same for exotic supercars. In fact, even California, ground zero for zero-emissions vehicles and hypermilers alike, exempts low-volume manufacturers — and their low-mileage offerings — from meeting its stringent auto regulations.