The Ford Motor Company's [NYSE:F] first F-150 Raptor was a wonderful surprise. It was a tough truck designed to take on nearly everything a driver could dish out. This means all bumps and jumps, and it looks like the next one is also ready to take on stumps. Ford has been hard at work testing the next-generation Raptor, which will wear the aluminum sheet metal like its F-150 siblings. The engineering team from the Blue Oval brand recently trekked up to Northern Michigan to put a prototype pickup through its paces.
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Typically, whenever the first-generation Raptor was shown being tested it was on desert terrain, and this one has too. The truck would be driven flat out as its suspension soaked up ruts before the truck took to the air over a massive jump. The latest bit of testing, however, shows the truck tackling mud-covered trails with the odd log strewn across the path.
The new Raptor has greater ground clearance than the previous iteration, and it also wears Fox Racing Shox with an internal custom bypass damper setup. Driving the action is a brand-new four-wheel-drive system that meters out torque actively and precisely to where it's needed. It's clear from this video that Ford is looking to create a more well-rounded off-road machine with the newest Raptor.
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Still, we look forward to flinging the aluminum EcoBoost beastie off a jump when we get the chance sometime next year.
2017 Ford F-150 Raptor
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