Join us as we get an on and off-road look at the 2023 Ford F-150 Raptor R and 2022 Ram 1500 TRX.
Fans of old-school American muscle may weep and gnash their teeth at the advent of modern, electrified powertrains. But despite protestations to the contrary, there’s maybe never been a better time to be a supercharged V8. Blown eight-cylinder engines now appear in everything ranging from muscle sedans to track-ready sports cars, from family-sized SUVs to desert-ready supertrucks.
It’s the latter category that’s piqued my interest most lately. The Ford F-150 Raptor has been a fixture of high-speed off-roading since its debut in 2010, but for its second generation, Ford ditched the V8 in favor of a downsized and twin-turbocharged 3.5-liter V6. That move left some enthusiasts cold, but luckily, Ram and its parent company Stellantis dropped the legendary Hellcat 6.2-liter V8 under the hood of the TRX, a wide-body, long-travel version of the 1500 pickup. The Raptor suddenly had some company, a rival whose supercharged engine note inspires a lot more hoonery than the powerful, but aurally challenged, Ecoboost V6.
The Blue Oval soon returned volley with the 2023 F-150 Raptor R, which also gets a heart transplant courtesy of a muscular corporate sibling - in this case, the supercharged 5.2-liter V8 from the Ford Mustang Shelby GT500. With 700 horsepower under the hood, the Raptor R is down (barely) on the TRX, but it compensates with 400 fewer pounds of body fat. With nearly identical ground clearance and wheel travel, picking a winner from only a spec chart is all but impossible. Guess I’ll have to hit the road (and the dirt) to figure out which of these dinosaurs is the best.
Read the full article here: www.motor1.com/ford/raptor/