It's late October/early November so that means we're headed to Las Vegas for the SEMA show, a great week long convention of manufacturers and industry muckity mucks all looking to reveal or find the next new hot product, so to start off our week of SEMA stuff we're going to show you the new 2010 Ford Raptor
As many of you know Ford has been long missing from the off road party, Jeep with their Rubicon, Toyota with both the FJ and the Land Cruiser, GM with Hummer, Dodge with Power Wagon, and Nissan with X-terra. But where is Ford? They may have been late, but they showed up with a truck that will catch up fast. Ford's rumored prerunner truck arrived yesterday and we got to ride in it and crawl underneath it, and found it quite possibly the best half ton truck ever made, at least in a long time. Lets get real here, half ton trucks have become cars with a really big trunk, they ride nice, usually have a V-8, but weren't the most exciting thing in off road performance. Usually too big to do gnarly trails yet running weak IFS parts should they get into gnarly obstacles. The fact is IFS is great at going fast and Ford recognized that. Ford's SVT team took their proud F-150 and made it into a great go fast across the desert and catch some jumps type machine, and what's really refreshing is that they are not trying to sell it as a rock crawler or some tight trail wheeler, they decided that the go fast scene is their niche and they are sticking to it. Plus they outfit it with some unique BF Goodrich All-terrains and Fox internal bypass front and rear shocks. It's a pretty amazing truck, not for everyone, but if going fast over rough terrain is your thing, then this just may be what you've been waiting for. Keep your eyes peeled for more info in an upcoming issue.