The second-gen Ford Ranger Raptor is now more than four years old. It was a winning idea in 2022, but does it still make sense in 2026? 2026 Ford Ranger Raptor You can’t get enough of the Ford Ranger Raptor. According to data from the Federal Chamber of Automotive Industries (FCAI), in 2025 nearly one in eight of all Ford Ranger utes sold in Australia was the high-performance Raptor.

Interestingly, while the Raptor claimed 12 per cent of all Ranger sales, the more environmentally responsible Ranger PHEV plug-in hybrid scored 2 per cent of Ranger sales. Score that match 6:1 to the Raptor. Of course, the upshot of this is that Ford is looking nervously at the bill it’s being presented with courtesy of the New Vehicle Efficiency Standard (NVES).

The Raptor’s 262g/km of carbon dioxide emissions place it firmly on the naughty side of the NVES ledger. It means that for 2025, every Raptor sold saddled Ford with a fine of $4406. In 2026, Ford Australia will face a $7406 NVES bill for every Raptor sold, and in 2027 that jumps to $10,406 per unit.

So, either Ford eats that cost – which is unlikely – or it passes it on to you, the customer. This second-gen Raptor has already increased by $10K since it was first introduced in February 2022, so it’ll very much be a case of testing what the market will bear. It could get very expensive, very quickly, but sales still seem relatively strong, largely because there’s really nothing else like the Raptor.

We booked one for a test to see whether the formula that once seemed so fresh has worn a little thin, given that it’s now no longer in its first flush of youth. After all, we now live in an era where this $90,690 (plus on-road costs) Ranger Raptor with 292kW will get dusted away from the lights by a 321kW BYD Shark 6 that costs $57,900 before on-roads, and does so while consuming a tiny fraction of the fuel the Ranger demands. Has the world moved on?

Well, given the healthy sales figures, a decent proportion of you lot clearly don’t seem to think so. The Ranger Raptor will go places and do things that would have the BYD waving the white flag pretty quickly, so there is a lot of capability that the Ford keeps in reserve. There’s not a whole lot of new news regarding the Raptor.

At the tail end of 2025, Ford offered a $5990 Raptor Desert Pack that featured an ARB sports bar, four roof-mounted ARB Nacho Quatro lamps, Desert Pack decals and Ford Performance floor mats. When specified on a new Raptor, this lifted the vehicle’s price into six figures. Other than that, it’s as you were.

You might well wonder why, if this T6.2 Ranger Raptor is so popular, a slew of imitators hasn’t flooded the market. In effect, it’s because the Raptor was such a huge engineering job for Ford of Australia. It needed a showcase project and really went to town on the Raptor.

You can bet your bottom dollar that every one of its key rivals has looked at replicating this formula, but totted up the costs of engineering an entirely new rear subframe, specifying the hugely expensive Fox 2.5-inch live valve internal bypass (or equivalent) dampers, widening the tracks, reinforcing the body, and strengthening the diffs, and just realised that they couldn’t make the sums work in their favour. In effect, Ford started with the capability requirements, developed the tyre and suspension specifications to deliver that capability, and then worked on the engine, transmission, body, software, driveline and so on to support that requirement.

To a bean counter, it’s a ridiculous way of going about developing a vehicle, but it has worked. It’s worked because in Ford’s bid to become ‘the Porsche of off-road racing’, the Raptor badge is what the customer sees in the showroom. It’s Ford walking the walk, the very point of that particular spear.

So, yes, it’s kind of a big deal, and it’s why Ford can bring this vehicle to market where others wouldn’t see the business case. And it’s why the Ranger Raptor remains a one-of-one. Right now, however, I’m trawling through Melbourne traffic and I’m nowhere near the ideal use-case.

Ford designed the Ranger Raptor for high-speed off-roading, and it excels at it. Thing is, most will never be used for that. I’d bet more Porsche 911 GT3 RS owners use their cars as intended – namely for circuit driving – than Raptor owners do.

And that’s only part of my contention with this vehicle. When I did take it for a little blat up a series of tracks near me, it returned a faintly horrific fuel figure of 46 litres per 100 kilometres and the ride quality wasn’t particularly great. Washboard sections caused it to skip in and out of phase, no matter how quickly I went to try to smooth them out.

I was a big fan of the old diesel Raptor. That was nowhere near as quick, but because of that, the suspension tune was far softer and more accommodating. It felt onside.

Because it’s faster – and, well, physics – this newer petrol Raptor needs firmer tie-down and delivers a fussier ride. There’s no more devalued