Few red-blooded Americans grew up without at least one Tonka truck gracing their toy box with its presence. These seemingly indestructible steel trucks were perfect for living out kid-size fantasies of high-speed desert romps, rock crawling and mud bogging. Most kids grew up, however, and are now living out their “rugged” fantasies behind the wheel of a crossover with all the mud credibility of a My Little Pony.

But not Ford’s in-house performance arm, Special Vehicle Team – better known as SVT. After a fairly quiet couple of years that saw Detroit’s highly-respected factory-backed performance arm crank out only a handful of products, the Dearborn crew started something entirely different: A high-performance, off road racing-oriented Baja 1000-style pickup based on the revised 2009 Ford F-150.

After thousands of miles of desert testing in California’s sun-parched Anza-Borrego National Park, the 2010 Ford F-150 SVT Raptor was born.

The Dearborn shocker
With the exception of the now-discontinued GT sports car, Ford’s lineup has long been a paragon of conservative performance, so to say that we were surprised by the Raptor concept is an understatement. How the SVT crew got this one by Ford’s lawyers is anyone’s guess – we’ll bet that the SVT corporate credit card shows more than a few filling meals at Detroit’s famous Buddy’s Pizza followed up by quite a few (Molson) Canadians. It must have taken a good number of drinks for the legal department to sign off on this project, which is so contradictory to Ford’s efforts at creating a “green” image.

Not that we mind – and we don’t think the snakes, lizards and scorpions that call the Anza Borrego Desert home cared either. Ford chose North America’s biggest off-highway vehicle park for both the Raptor’s development and its media introduction and, of course, Leftlane was there.

A Tonka for big kids
Looks alone will undoubtedly sell many Raptors. With its widened stance – the wheels are about seven inches further apart than a stock F-150, its built-in LED lamps – to comply with Department of Transportation requirements – and its optional graphics package, the Raptor screams for attention. A special set of alloy wheels and big 35-inch BFGoodrich All-Terrain tires modified specifically for the Raptor finish off the Baja-ready look.

What those sold on just the style will miss is a tremendous amount technology gleaned from high-speed desert research and development. The SVT engineers created an extensive test course in the desert and, starting with a bog-standard F-150 outfitted essentially with a trip through 4WheelParts, experimented before producing what they believe is the best high-performance factory off-road truck ever. By default, of course, it is the best, since we’re not aware of any other street legal Baja 1000-style effort by another manufacturer.

A thoroughly reengineered suspension is at the heart of the F-150 Raptor. Wheel travel is up substantially to 13.4 inches in the rear and 11.2 inches in the front, but the real excitement is over the Fox Racing Shox shock absorbers. Designed to allow the Raptor to traverse intense terrain, these shocks contain high-altitude commercial jet-style fluid and an internal bypass system to stiffen the shock as it travels to prevent potentially destructive bottoming out.

Finally, in addition to Ford’s first application of hill descent control, there’s an Off Road mode, which calibrates the transmission, stability control and traction control to operate properly at high speed to allow for some slip – think of it as a track mode for desert roads.

For now, the Raptor shares the same 320 horsepower 5.4-liter Triton V8 known to us in the standard F-150, although the upcoming 6.2-liter Boss V8, with its estimated 400 horsepower and 400 lb-ft. of torque, will arrive in early 2010 as an SVT exclusive – at least until 2011 when it finds its way under the hood of the standard F-150. We have not driven a Raptor with that powertrain.

Daily drivability
August in the Anza-Borrego Desert isn’t for the faint of heart, with daytime highs tickling 120 degrees when a cold front rolls through. A brief drive from San Diego into the wasteland, or desert oasis, depending on your perspective, revealed a surprisingly docile on-road demeanor for the Raptor. Its extra width and SVT-engineered steering upgrades delivered stable and responsive handling, while thorough noise, vibration and harshness efforts kept things as serene in the Raptor as in the remarkably refined standard F-150.

Inside, you’ll find few changes aside from a panel with four pre-wired auxiliary switches – aimed at powering additional lights, winches, big screen TVs set up in the bed and the like. An optional $395 interior accent package adds the bright orange trim on the seats, dash and doors for those rather less-than-introverted types. A grippy, SVT-exclusive steering wheel with an orange on-center marker – if you don’t know what it’s for, the Raptor is not your truck of choice – rounds out the interior add-ons. Factor in the more bolstered captain’s chairs and the extended cab-only Raptor is one refined Baja 1000 racer.

Desert romping
And a Baja 1000 racer it is. Ford took the initiative of entering a preproduction Raptor in this year’s Baja 1000, the first such effort by an automaker, and wound up taking third place in its class. Not a bad effort for a virtually stock rig.

With the tires aired down to about 25 psi – and the instrument panel “low pressure” idiot light illuminated (thanks lawyers!), the Raptor was ready for its romp. Aside from the addition of an electrically locking rear differential, which can be operated at any speed in any of the three transfer case modes, the four-wheel-drive system is the same as you’ll find on any other F-150.

True high-speed desert driving is done in two-wheel-drive, but the Raptor is designed to appeal to buyers in the 45 or so states that lack anything resembling a desert, too, so the four-wheel-drive truck is thus capable of decent mud bogging, wide fire trail running and rock crawling. Its width, which makes a standard F-150 extended cab, short bed model look puny, will be its only real obstacle. Ample wheel travel, communicative rock-crawling steering and the safety net of a rear locker help tremendously. Our only gripe was the open front differential – SVT tells us that a Torsen-style front differential could make the Ford Racing-engineered options list in the future.

With the aid of an experienced SVT engineer, we piloted the Raptor along a 22-mile sand-covered off-road course in well under 30 minutes. Let’s visit those numbers in more detail: The Raptor helped us go 22 miles in fewer than 30 minutes – through washes and sand beds, over waterboarded stretches and between gullies. And we’re just amateurs; an experienced desert runner could easily shave several minutes off of our best time.

At speed, the Raptor responds as predictably as a video game. Light flicks of the steering wheel might push the tail out a bit in a sandy corner, but with Off Road mode engaged, the stability control quietly put us back in place. For expert drivers, the stability control can be fully disengaged, but at 70 mph in sand that would stop a camel in its tracks, we were content to leave the system engaged.

Most notable were the Fox Shox for their outstanding performance. Over even the roughest terrain, they filtered out any harshness we might otherwise have encountered, and they simply prevented the Raptor from bottoming out at any attainable speed.

The 5.4-liter Triton engine that seems a little underpowered in street-going F-150s proved more than sufficient in the desert. A specially-tuned exhaust provided a nice growl and the Off Road mode kept the transmission smack dab in the middle of the engine’s torque curve. We can’t imagine wanting more power here for anything other than bragging rights, but we can imagine wanting some sort of shift-it-yer-own-damn-self ability like paddles or at least a separate flick back-and-forth gate for the six-speed automatic.

Leftlane’s bottom line
The Raptor business case was no doubt tough to make, but Ford says that early orders have been brisk. Few, if any, Raptors will be enjoyed in the desert – due mostly to the lack of desert-like terrain in most of the United States and Canada. In reality, most Raptors, like most high-performance sports cars, will be sold for their credibility and image, rather than their new owners’ intention to push them to their limits.

For those not afraid of getting a little dirty, the Raptor performs in spades. Its merits are obvious, its detriments few and far between – especially for its reasonable $2,500 premium over an equivalent F-150 FX4. Replicating the Raptor’s performance in aftermarket parts would well exceed that figure, especially when you consider the SVT-exclusive Fox Shox. After a day of desert romping, it came as little surprise to hear that the U.S. Border Patrol has already expressed interest in acquiring some Raptors. Watch out!

More than anything, the Raptor helps reinvent SVT for the future. While we don’t want to see the elite group of Ford engineers move away from on-road performance entirely, we appreciate their unique out-of-the-box thinking, not to mention their obvious ability to build a fun and exciting full-size Tonka.

2010 Ford F-150 SVT Raptor base price, $38,995.

Words and photos by Andrew Ganz.

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