Ford’s toughest and most capable off-road truck ever, the 2017 F-150 Raptor, has completed more than 1,000 miles (1,609 km) of desert trail testing in southwestern United States.
The high-performance pickup truck has been put to the test on over 1,028 miles (1,654 km) of desert trail designed to parallel the Baja race course in Mexico. Trucks covered multiple times the 66-mile (106-km) route, which featured a wide range of surfaces including fast sandy washes, deep-rutted silt beds, steep climbs in deep sand, and slow crawls through tight trenches.
Ford says the truck topped speeds of 100 mph (161 mph) in places, slowing to 10 mph (16 km/h) in others, for an average speed of approximately 50 mph (80 km/h) . Based on lap times, the 2017 Raptor is 25 percent faster than the current truck.
At the end of each lap, the new F-150 Raptor completed a tabletop jump consisting of a steep ramp up to a two-foot plateau, then a step-off back to level ground. The vehicles tested were early build prototypes made from a mix of 2015 F-150 Raptor and 2017 F-150 Raptor components.
According to Ford, engineers pushed the 2017 Raptor harder in a few days than it will be pushed over the lifetime of a typical vehicle, far exceeding what an owner would do on the trail. Ford will continue testing the next Raptor next year, with sales scheduled to begin in fall 2016.
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