EXCLUSIVE: Ford has built the Everest Raptor – you just can't have it

The Ford Everest Raptor exists.

It's probably sitting in a darkened warehouse or on a backlot somewhere rather than winging its way to your local Ford dealer, but it's intriguing to hear just how close this proof of concept got to becoming a production reality.

“Ultimately you can't have everything,” sighs Anthony Hall, Vehicle Engineering Manager for the next-gen Ranger. “We had to make a decision on what projects were priorities, where you direct resource and it [the Everest Raptor] never got up.”

UPDATE, July 2022: New Ford Ranger review – it's here at last

The new 2023 Ford Ranger is now on sale in Australia, and the local media launch has been run. The Wheels and 4x4 Australia teams have both driven the new Ranger, and you can find their stories at the links below.

Story continues...

3

A speculative image of the 2023 Ford Everest Raptor, rendered by Theo Throttle.

“We did build one though and it was sensational,” he says, eyes widening. “I can tell you I've been airborne in an Everest Raptor. The Ford Performance guys in the US thought it was incredible.

"We took it out to the desert in California and even though it was a very rough dev[elopment] car, it was something else. At one point we took it up a rocky mountain face, probably about a 60 per cent gradient, and nobody thought it had a chance.

"There was something wrong with the car at the time. I seem to recall that the diff lock wasn't working at that point, but it still crawled right up. Yes, it was more rock crawl than proper Raptor stuff – but nothing else made it up that slope. Nobody could believe it.”

3

The new Ranger Raptor will land in Australia later this year

Still, there were other reasons aside from those of pure budget allocation why the Everest Raptor never made it past this one engineering assessment vehicle.

“The SUV body meant that it was a harder vehicle to engineer than the Ranger Raptor. The rear door shutline was always a problem. That's a particularly complex part of the vehicle body, so you can't just blow it out into a wide box arch. As a result, the suspension never quite had the articulation of the Ranger.”

Most such prototypes then get crushed or repurposed for other engineering programs, but perhaps the engineers at Ford Performance in the US loved the thing so much that they couldn't bring themselves to kill it.

“It's still around somewhere,” says Hall grinning.

Never say never, eh?