2025 Ford Ranger Raptor vs F-150 Raptor vs Bronco Raptor comparison - Related to deal, might, raptor, horsepower, power

2025 Ford Ranger Raptor vs F-150 Raptor vs Bronco Raptor comparison

There are a lot of Ford Ranger Raptors on the road in Australia. While most of their time is spent as daily drivers, their capabilities extend well beyond that. In fact, they extend well beyond what most vehicles on the market are capable of.

We had the opportunity to join Ford on a curated drive program in the Middle East to sample not only the Ford Ranger Raptor we get in Australia, but also the OG, the F-150 Raptor. Along with the Ranger Raptor’s twin, the Bronco Raptor.

Before we get to how that went, we were staggered to hear that one in every six Ford Rangers sold is a Ranger Raptor, which has no direct rival. It has exceeded even Ford’s lofty sales predictions and offers Ford a huge additional revenue stream from a product that already generates high-margin returns for the brand.

It all started for Ford with the F-150 Raptor 15 years ago. The original F-150 Raptor was built on Ford’s experimentation with earlier F-150s, like the SVT Lightning in the ’90s, to create a purpose-built, Baja-ready race truck.

While today’s F-150 Raptor is lightyears ahead in terms of technology and performance, it builds on the same bones of the original with Fox shocks, a wider track. Long travel upper and lower control arms and big power.

The Ranger Raptor also spawned the Bronco Raptor. It shares a platform with the Ranger but borrows front-end parts from the F-150 Raptor and sports much larger 37-inch tyres and a stupidly menacing wide track to make its intentions known.

The cool part about the Ranger Raptor and. Bronco Raptor is that both were designed and engineered in Australia. Prior to working on these products, the Aussie team behind them had just wrapped up work on the last fast Falcons – the XR6 and. XR8 Sprint. These are passionate motorsport fans that, funnily enough, had already been big into off-roading before being tapped to take on the challenge.

Ford Performance DNA in vehicles like the Ranger, Bronco and. F-150 Raptor is all about sitting at the very edge of the off-road performance envelope. You’ll find BFGoodrich KO2 tyres on each of them that are terrible in the wet, but. Excellent off-road.

You’ll find big, meaty turbocharged petrol engines in each. They are heavy on fuel but deliver neck-snapping performance off-road. The DNA is all about no compromise in what the vehicle is purpose-built for, and in this instance. It’s driving very fast off-road.

Anyway, let’s go over what we had the chance to test. Across two days, we had access to Ranger Raptor, Bronco Raptor and F-150 Raptor, with each vehicle traversing a course suited to its core competency.

For the Ranger Raptor, it was all about fast technical sand driving with switchbacks and. Dune climbs. For the Bronco Raptor, it was all about rock climbing and traversing steep rocky terrain, while for the F-150 Raptor it was all about max speed and. Getting from A to B in the sand as fast as possible.

We set off in the Ranger Raptor first. Having owned one for two years, I genuinely enjoy driving it each time I hop in. Normally, I’ll get bored of test cars by the time our week with them is over.

So, knowing the car as well as I do. I was excited to explore its limits a little more. Dialled over to Baja mode, the Ranger Raptor engages 4H (see our detailed explainer on the difference between 4WD modes and where you should use them), holds gears for longer, puts the suspension and steering into Baja mode (along with the exhaust) and engages an anti-lag feature for sharper throttle response.

What I will never be able to properly explain in words – simply because you need to experience it yourself – is just how compliant and. Soft the suspension is when you start picking up the pace along rough sand and whoops.

The Fox shocks feature live-valve technology that enables precise electronic compression tuning. Ford also went to a lot of effort to tune the inner shims and control valves to manage effective fluid flow through the damper.

When you hit a bump at speed that causes the car to compress, unload and leave the ground. You expect the landing to be rough and unforgiving. Instead, it’s a soft and comfortable impact that leaves you feeling like you’ve landed on a cloud. The dampers can absorb a huge amount of that energy, so you don’t feel it through the body of the vehicle.

In comparison to the Bronco and F-150. The Ranger also feels nimble and darty through the dunes – something you’d never describe a mainstream Ranger as. Unlike the previous-gen turbo-diesel model, there’s also no waiting around for things to get moving – it gets on with it in a big way.

On wide, open sections of road, if you sink the boot in. It offers a nice torque split between front and rear. It’s not super rear-biased, but it gives you enough to push the tail out if you need to in 4H. The steering is also direct and precise enough to get a vibe for what’s going on.

Baja mode also offers added play in the ABS setting to allow a build-up of material under the front tyres. Typically, ABS tries to limit any locking of the wheels under heavy braking. It’s great during normal driving conditions on sealed surfaces, but off-road it extends its braking distance because the low-friction material constantly causes the vehicle to assume the brakes are locking.

This adjusted mode then permits longer periods of brakes locking. This allows a build-up of material on the leading edge of the tyre, which helps slow things down.

We’ve been jumping up and. Down about why Ford doesn’t bring the Bronco Raptor to Australia. Currently, it’s only engineered for left-hand drive and only offered in left-hand drive markets. However, given that it shares a platform with Ranger, it’d seem a logical addition to the Raptor lineup in Australia.

One thing I never properly considered was the price. A quick search of the Ford US website for in-stock inventory and you find the asking price is around US$100,000. Even if you strip away economies of scale, shipping and market-specific costs. That would make the Bronco Raptor a circa-$170,000 vehicle before on-road costs in Australia. It’d be completely out of reach for most – and way too much of a stretch.

Just on the design before we get into the drive. It looks unbelievable in the metal. The track is so wide that the wheel-arch covers look like they’ve been fabricated for a vehicle that somebody has spent $30k on modifying.

It has huge, exposed recovery points. Comprehensive underbody protection and enormous 37-inch tyres (the F-150 Raptor doesn’t even come standard with 37s). Also, the interior is surprisingly not what I expected.

Where the Ranger Raptor has a premium vibe befitting of its price tag, the Bronco Raptor feels even somewhat cheaper than the Ranger Raptor from a materials and. Fit-and-finish point of view. To think that it costs almost $100,000 more blows you away because it certainly doesn’t feel like it matches that price tag inside the car.

But that all changes when you drive it. Both the Ranger and Bronco Raptor share the same turbocharged V6 petrol engine, but the Bronco’s outputs are slightly higher. It’s also louder as the exhaust sits directly beneath the cabin, injecting more of that tinny hollow exhaust sound into the car.

Just like Ranger, it has a number of driving modes and. Diff locks. While Ranger and Bronco both get front and rear diff locks, Bronco Raptor also picks up disconnecting sway bars.

Even though it’s built to be as capable as a Jeep Wrangler Rubicon. The Bronco makes do with independent front suspension (where the Wrangler uses a live front axle). That means that the steering feel is significantly superior. It’s not quite as good as the Ranger, but it’s nowhere near as bad as the Jeep.

Our drive loop for the Bronco Raptor included some highway driving before peeling off toward rocky terrain for some slower, steeper climbing.

Despite packing a bit more power than the Ranger Raptor. The Bronco doesn’t feel as quick on the go. It’s heavier than the Raptor, and from an aerodynamic standpoint, it appears to catch more air as it drives, which slows it down a little further.

That stuff doesn’t count for much when you’re rock-crawling. Though. We used the sway bar disconnect, along with low-range for this obstacle course, which involved steep descents, steep climbs and. Lower-speed tight turns.

While this wasn’t the most advanced course in the world, it highlighted how easily the Bronco Raptor is able to climb terrain. Most people don’t go too crazy when it comes to off-road driving, but. The Bronco Raptor is an example of an off-roader that gives you everything you need without looking to the aftermarket. It also helps that you don’t need to fit more off-road goodies, and they don’t void your warranty.

What it compromises on-road (with things like wind noise and tyre noise). It makes up for it off-road with a host of standard four-wheel drive equipment.

Finally, we had a crack in F-150 Raptor. While it wasn’t the top-shelf Raptor R, and instead just the standard Raptor, trust me, there’s still more than enough engine for this truck.

While the Raptor R gets a supercharged V8. The standard Raptor makes do with a turbocharged petrol V6. It makes more power than both the Ranger and Bronco Raptor. Most importantly, it comes with the biggest of the Fox shocks with live-valve technology on both compression and rebound for additional tuning variability.

While this was a fun little course with higher speeds, there was an awesome carved-out section of whoops to test the suspension’s full capabilities.

This section of whoops had us taking off from a standstill and. Accelerating to around 150km/h while going across continuous undulations with the throttle pinned. Despite its size, it felt supremely capable and well-composed over the suspension torture test.

The F-150 also has the most unique exhaust note of the three. It absolutely bellows and has a raspy snarl as it accelerates away in Baja mode.

Again, despite its size. It managed to carve up sand dunes with little fuss. Steep dune climbs were dispatched with a helping of throttle, while direction changes through the dunes required a bit more attention due to the vehicle’s size.

Naturally. The F-150’s cabin feels the most spacious by a long shot. The second row has a heap of room, while the width of the vehicle gives you more than enough space to stretch out.

It’s also expensive – again. Part of the reason it’s not on sale in Australia. To make it economically viable post-conversion, it’d likely be a $200,000 proposition, which would be hard to justify given the volume numbers Ford would need for a return.

While you can’t compare the three. Which should you buy if money is no object? Funnily enough, the cheapest one is the most versatile of the bunch. The Ford Ranger Raptor is (relatively) cost-effective, stupidly good in both low- and high-speed off-road driving, and arguably feels the most premium in terms of fit and finish and interior design.

Either way. If you did buy any of these, you’d be happy you made the right choice. There’s nothing else on the market that comes close to delivering this kind of capability in a factory-backed package as these three vehicles.

It’s so good that these types of vehicles still exist in the world. I’m also very jealous of some of the incredible off-road driving that can be done in the Middle East!

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Winches are a vital off-road accessory. And while they're typically powered by a vehicle's 12-volt electrical system, Stellantis is looking at an alternative power source for them in hybrids and. Electric vehicles.

In a patent filing (USPTO) Jan. 21, 2025, and submitted by the automaker about a year prior, Stellantis discusses running a winch not off a battery pack but with a gearbox connected to one of the vehicle's electric drive motors.

Stellantis patent image of a winch geared to an electric motor.

As described in the document. The winch would be mounted on a vehicle's front bumper in the conventional fashion. But instead of having its own built-in electric motor to spool and unspool a cable (which is then connected to an anchor point to pull the vehicle out of trouble spots), the winch would be connected to a planetary gearbox and. Then to drive modules like the ones Stellantis plans to manufacture in Indiana.

The gearbox would in turn be connected to the differential on the front axle, allowing an electric motor normally used to propel the vehicle to turn the winch's spool instead of the wheels. A winch mode would disconnect the front wheels, as well as activate the parking brake to lock the rear wheels for maximum stability. .

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Furthermore, the main benefit of such an arrangement would likely be the ease of integrating winches into vehicles from the factory. Eliminating the dedicated motor for winches would make them more compact, and. Potentially easier to place behind a bumper where they wouldn't be a source of aerodynamic drag. Not that current buyers of off-road vehicles have any problem fitting aftermarket winches, though.

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The Xiaomi SU7 Ultra comes with 1,526 horsepower and costs $72,750.

The brand wants to sell 10,000 units of the SU7 Ultra in 2025.

not long ago. The SU7 Ultra beat a Porsche Taycan Turbo GT around the Shanghai International Circuit by about seconds.

It can be pretty hard to keep up with the breakneck speed of China’s electric vehicle industry. Within about 18 months, Xiaomi pivoted from making cheap cellphones and laptops to a full-blown electric car.

That model rocketed to the top of Chinese sales charts and even impressed the hell out of Ford’s CEO. Who drove one around the Chicagoland area for weeks. Now, the brand has put 1,500 worth of electric motors in the thing, and they’re gunning for necks of some of the fastest EVs on the planet in the form of the Xiaomi SU7 Ultra.

Well, now the Ultra is officially been released A handful of Chinese media drivers have finally gotten behind the wheel for a review—both in the context of on-the-road driving and. Hammering it in more aggressive circumstances. Haoran Zhou, the former car PR person and F1 reporter, did a lead-follow of the SU7 Ultra on track.

I have to note that this is technically a step down from the full-race-ready track-prepped version that Xiaomi sent around the Nürburgring. The two cars still have the same 1,526 horsepower, but the lap-setting version has essentially a full carbon-fiber body. Complete with huge brake ducts right into the side of the car. This version uses mostly the body of the standard SU7, although it does have a new aluminum hood.

Because of this. The SU7 Ultra is still as fully featured as the standard car. Zhou spent half of the video using Xiaomi’s driver assistance capabilities. It appears to work as well as the standard SU7, but Zhou did remark that it was a little surreal to have a 1,500-horsepower car do some sort of autonomous driving. “I’m trying my best to find a positive use case for it,” he stated, theorizing that these capabilities would save wear and. Tear on the vehicle itself between track day use. “No normal human being would be driving like this in an SU7 Ultra,” he stated.

On track. The SU7 was driven in “Endurance Mode,” which limits the power output to around 900 horsepower. Zhou was positive, but he was very pointed in his critique of the SU7 Ultra. Of course, it’s very fast, but he remarked that the car’s weight was noticeable in curves, and. At least compared to the Zeekr 001 FR, it didn’t feel as quick in the limited power mode. But it's still an incredibly capable car.

Zhou admitted that part of his critique may be somewhat limited because of his lack of skill. The Xiaomi SU7 Ultra beat the Porsche Taycan Turbo GT around the Shanghai International Circuit around a track not long ago. All of this for about $73,000.

Not too bad for a brand’s first effort in making cars.

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