Autocar

FORD RANGER RAPTOR

Despite appearance­s, it feels like a car in many ways, including on the motorway

WHY WE’RE RUNNING IT

To see if a Baja-ready pick-up truck can handle the Wild West that is British roads

I’ve been doing some serious commuting work alongside the practical stuff in my Ranger Raptor. First, its biggest schlep yet, to Edinburgh: I stayed in a castle, found a tiny bit of snow, took in the big scenery and enjoyed the pick-up truck in what isn’t the kind of activity you will find in the brochure, covering mega motorway miles and sweeping A-roads. But I enjoyed both just the same.

The Raptor is an unlikely motorway star. With very good forward visibility (unless you’re driving behind it), good stability, the fanciest of dampers that work their best at speed and are entirely untroubled by anything on the road and an interior that’s more car than commercial vehicle in feel, it’s very relaxing. The weighty steering likes pointing forward and, even though it rides on huge tyres with big treads, it’s precise and stable enough in a straight line.

In some cars, settling into a long cruise can improve fuel economy no end. Particular­ly if you combine it with driving very calmly, slotting in between the trucks. I once got comfortabl­y over 40mpg out of a Toyota Land Cruiser that way. But the Ranger seems to return low-20s MPG almost regardless of what I do, pushing into the mid-20s if I have plenty of time in hand, even though there’s a 10-speed automatic gearbox to keep that 3.0-litre petrol V6 out of its turbo-spooling zones.

There are steering wheelmount­ed paddles if you do want to take control of gearshifts when windier roads arrive, but I don’t find it that helpful. I don’t know why this should be. Having 10 speeds ought to make it easy to keep it in its comfort zone, but when using the ’box myself, I’m almost finding the opposite: that there’s probably a ratio just a paddle flap away where it would be better. It’s such a bright ’box at quickly kicking down to the most appropriat­e ratio that I’m inclined to leave it in auto mode.

Then, later, I did another, shorter, more towny commute to see the importer of Silence scooters and quadricycl­es, set on a busy Solihull street, where I was about to run out of parking options for a vehicle the Raptor’s size until they kindly said I could leave it on the access road – because, naturally, the Silence S04 quadricycl­e would still be able to get past. The S04 is a more townfriend­ly vehicle. Although I’d rather tackle speed humps in the Raptor.