2010 Ford F-150 SVT Raptor Review

Cars.com experts walk you through the 2010 Ford F-150 SVT Raptor and its important new features.

2010 Ford F-150 SVT Raptor Review This is Michael Levine with pickuptrucks.com. After almost a year of rumors and speculation, we’re here with the 2010 Ford F-150 SVT Raptor. Ford special vehicle team has put together one of the toughest and most extreme off-road racers ever to come out of the factory. We’re going to go ahead and take look at the hardwork and if you like to find out more about this design, check out our separate interview with Bruce Williams, the designer on the Raptor. SVT has spent the most time tweaking and setting up the Raptor suspension. The mount points had been modified for the long travel suspension and the Raptor gets unique upper and lower control arms. There's also custom Fox Racing Shox developed specifically for the Raptor. Fox is well known on the off-road world for creating after market shock packages. You can see here, this is the rear shock that we’re holding, oil flows in here for cooling purposes. The shock also provides up to 13 inches of wheel travel on the rear and around 11 and a half inches up front. For most after market off-road shocks, they use an external bypass design. What you’ll see on those external bypass shocks is you’ll see tubes coming off the running length of the truck. And it allows for people to manually tune the shock that's because there are many different trucks of the shocks can be put on. Since Ford has been working with Fox Racing the entire program, what they’ve done is they’ve actually created a patented internal bypass set up, so that you don’t have to tune the truck to off-roading with it. It’s like that from the factory. Ford also promises that the shocks will last up to 10 years or 150,000 miles before they need to be replaced. The Raptor has unique 17 by 8 ½-inch rims and it wears BF Goodrich all-terrain tires. When it arrives next summer, the Raptor will first be available with a 5.4 liter V8 rated at 320 horsepower and 390 pound feet of torque. But by the winter of 2009, you’ll be able to order the Raptor with a premium 6.2 liter V8. This is the engine formerly referred to as the Boss. Inside the Raptor the differences that you’ll find on this truck are unique instrument panel. There's a center indicator here on the steering wheel and the seats have been heavily bolstered. The off-road running gear on the Raptor is unique. It has Ford first ever application of hill decent control. It has these switches to control extra lightning on the outside or after market accessories and off-road mode which disables most electronic mannies. This switch controls a transfer case. They lets you shift from two wheel drive to four high or for low and if you pull it out, it activates the electronic locking rear differential. What's unique about this from all of the trucks sold today is that Ford will let you use the electronic locking rear differential when you're in two wheel drive. The last time we saw an SVT badge F150 was the Ford lightning, one of the ultimate street performance of trucks of all time. The new SVT Raptor off-road pickup looks beyond to paper and the specs that we’ve seen an ultimate off-roader. For more news and information, check out pickuptrucks.com.