If the Australian market is anything to go by, there may be a more extreme version of the Ford Ranger to come. Most of you may know the Raptor namesake from the Ford F-150 Raptor, which is the sort of dune-jumping, baja-esque vehicle that begs to be hooned along an offroad path.
As Car Advice has spotted, Ford down under has registered the trademark for the Ford Ranger Raptor name, along with the Ranger FX4. The Wildtrak variant was already announced for this new generation of Ford Ranger, but the launch in Thailand had no word of a Raptor variant gracing the market- not that there has ever been a Raptor variant of the Ranger before.
It’s possible that the Raptor model may be a special one-off product for the Australian market, because even though the Ranger is a regional product that caters to the Asia-Pacific, Australia has plenty of lee-way in terms of their own market demands. Whether this will come in the form of a more powerful engine or simply a few cosmetic upgrades is hard to say- engineering a whole new product with a larger powertrain and uprated dynamics is not a simple cut and paste job.
Whatever it is, we will still be waiting for the local launch of the all-new Ford Ranger. It’s going to be a big step as we revealed in previous articles, as this generation will include features like the all new SYNC 2, and a whole range of improvements that make the Ranger a more livable car for day-to-day needs.
