Apparently, there's a decent number of rock crawlers that buy them, based on things that are being actively worked on for them, specifically.
Apparently, there's a decent number of rock crawlers that buy them, based on things that are being actively worked on for them, specifically.
Ian F wrote: I have to admit, when I see a Raptor it gives me evil thoughts about building something similar out of an older truck. Although it would probably lack most of the creature comforts (although I'd keep A/C).
I had the same thought last night, and decided to look for a vehicross. The made some weaker, but similar statements back in the day. It was about handling and had some luxury, external reservoir shocks (first production truck to have them) and a reasonably low CG.
Sadly, they've gone super rare. There's only one of eBay, none on autotrader, and five on CarFax. They're all far away, and more than I'd be willing to spend.
I secretly want one, i have no need for it let alone the budget. But they tickle my inner redneck.
Mike wrote:Ian F wrote: I have to admit, when I see a Raptor it gives me evil thoughts about building something similar out of an older truck. Although it would probably lack most of the creature comforts (although I'd keep A/C).I had the same thought last night, and decided to look for a vehicross. The made some weaker, but similar statements back in the day. It was about handling and had some luxury, external reservoir shocks (first production truck to have them) and a reasonably low CG. Sadly, they've gone super rare. There's only one of eBay, none on autotrader, and five on CarFax. They're all far away, and more than I'd be willing to spend.
There used to be a Vehicross just down the street from me. It's disappeared. I am sad. It made the drive to work more interesting.
I've looked into building a baby Raptor out of an old Ranger or Tacoma. Problem is, unless engineer the whole suspension yourself, you start to bump into the bottom of used Raptor prices fairly easily.
I look at the prices of Raptors and ask myself what kind of airplane could I build for that kind of money.
Keith Tanner wrote:Mike wrote:There used to be a Vehicross just down the street from me. It's disappeared. I am sad. It made the drive to work more interesting. I've looked into building a baby Raptor out of an old Ranger or Tacoma. Problem is, unless engineer the whole suspension yourself, you start to bump into the bottom of used Raptor prices fairly easily.Ian F wrote: I have to admit, when I see a Raptor it gives me evil thoughts about building something similar out of an older truck. Although it would probably lack most of the creature comforts (although I'd keep A/C).I had the same thought last night, and decided to look for a vehicross. The made some weaker, but similar statements back in the day. It was about handling and had some luxury, external reservoir shocks (first production truck to have them) and a reasonably low CG. Sadly, they've gone super rare. There's only one of eBay, none on autotrader, and five on CarFax. They're all far away, and more than I'd be willing to spend.
When I looked into the prerunner scene in the early aughts, it seemed to be biased toward (as in heavily, but far from exclusively) Fords. I wonder if that had anything to do with the Raptor greenlight.
There are some good options for Toyotas, but Ford is still the king. I think it's got to do with how easy it is to add travel in the front.
Keith Tanner wrote:Mike wrote:There used to be a Vehicross just down the street from me. It's disappeared. I am sad. It made the drive to work more interesting. I've looked into building a baby Raptor out of an old Ranger or Tacoma. Problem is, unless engineer the whole suspension yourself, you start to bump into the bottom of used Raptor prices fairly easily.Ian F wrote: I have to admit, when I see a Raptor it gives me evil thoughts about building something similar out of an older truck. Although it would probably lack most of the creature comforts (although I'd keep A/C).I had the same thought last night, and decided to look for a vehicross. The made some weaker, but similar statements back in the day. It was about handling and had some luxury, external reservoir shocks (first production truck to have them) and a reasonably low CG. Sadly, they've gone super rare. There's only one of eBay, none on autotrader, and five on CarFax. They're all far away, and more than I'd be willing to spend.
I beg to differ as far as totoal cost outlay to build a long travel minitruck orthe off the shelf nature. I've been building an 89 hilux with total chaos longtravel ifs/irs (yes, I said irs), king motorsports remote reservoir coilovers, an turbo ls power, fiberwerx glass everything but cab, cost no object everything and I'm getting close to done at under $25k (a build thread is imminent) That's a far cry from $65,000 and my truck will smoke a raptor is any measurable test when done aside from interior volume.
Total chaos makes a kit for these trucks that is fairly straightforward to install and virtually no engineering is involved unless you do some left field E36 M3 like I'm doing with the irs.
My targets are:
Acceleration. Turbo 6.0ls= solved
Braking. The irs swapps the straight axle for what is basically a second front suspension with the 4 pot fixed calipers and discs. An fzj80 master is a direct swap and works with the 4 wheel discs. I'm using brembo plain rotors for now with goodridge lines and hawk pads. Should stop good
Suspension. 13" travel and fully independent King Motorsports's coilovers are art work. = solved.
Fuel economy. I think the sub 3000lb weight (it's looking like 27-2800) with an efficient driveline will be very economical 
Interior accoutrements. It'll have recaros and a momo steering wheel, a flocked dash, carbon door cards, alpine audio, and if I can swing it, a stack cluster or a tablet based cluster.
Utility. It gets a little interesting here..... The factory bed is deleted during the rear suspension swap (the area is tubular construction with fiberwerx bedsides like a trophy tuck) so that would seem to hurt utility, but..... There will be mounting points for accessories like an aluminum race jack, a high lift jack, and water tight pelican containers for storage. But wait, there's more... the oem bed and rear frame with ferrera leaf springs and bilseins (stuff that I installed during an earlier evolution of this build) is getting made into a matching adventure trailer with an arb roof top tent, cooking stuff, potable water containment. Basically a fully equipped camping rig as easy as hooking up a trailer hitch.
Decent used pre-runner trucks (which is what the raptor is trying to emulate) can be had in $15k range
Google prerunner for sale
In reply to sesto elemento:
Can we get married?
Huckleberry wrote:mazdeuce wrote:The raptor is 6k lbs. The Fusion is 3.5k. All that extra power is just wasted moving the extra mass around.Brett_Murphy wrote: If you don't need to haul things, just get the Fusion Sport.They both have a turbo V6, but the Raptor gets 450hp and 510 lb-ft whereas the Fusion has 325hp and 350 lb-ft. Now, shove the Raptor V6 in the Fusion and my ears perk right up.
The Lincoln MKZ is available with a 3L Ecoboost putting out 400hp/400lb-ft. It's not quite Raptor levels, but it's a big jump over the Fusion Sport. It does 0-60 in the high 4's and the quarter mile in the low 13's.
sesto elemento wrote:Keith Tanner wrote: I've looked into building a baby Raptor out of an old Ranger or Tacoma. Problem is, unless engineer the whole suspension yourself, you start to bump into the bottom of used Raptor prices fairly easily.I beg to differ as far as totoal cost outlay to build a long travel minitruck orthe off the shelf nature. I've been building an 89 hilux with total chaos longtravel ifs/irs (yes, I said irs), king motorsports remote reservoir coilovers, an turbo ls power, fiberwerx glass everything but cab, cost no object everything and I'm getting close to done at under $25k (a build thread is imminent) That's a far cry from $65,000 and my truck will smoke a raptor is any measurable test when done aside from interior volume.
You missed one important word in my post.
Keith Tanner wrote: I've looked into building a baby Raptor out of an old Ranger or Tacoma. Problem is, unless engineer the whole suspension yourself, you start to bump into the bottom of used Raptor prices fairly easily.
The bottom of used Raptor prices is about $25k according to eBay.
Spotted one today and I must say I found it quite a bit more handsome than the previous gen. My inner redneck would love one to launch off of every berm and railroad crossing I could find. Sadly, I doubt they will ever get cheap enough to justify buying for that use.
ebonyandivory wrote: In reply to sesto elemento: Can we get married?
Only if you're rich, hot and female and dont mind polygamy 
Also, see the freshly minted build thread. Enjoy.
For less than $30k, including the cost of a stock truck, you could build something equivalent to this:
I ordered a 2017 Dodge Power Wagon a few weeks ago. I know it's no match for the Raptor on high speed dirt roads but I don't have any of those around here. I do have deep snow and bad roads and I think the front and rear locking diffs, multi link suspensions and winch will be perfect for what I need, and it's a lot cheaper than the Raptor. https://www.youtube.com/embed/5AxpvBT0Sug
Appleseed wrote: I look at the prices of Raptors and ask myself what kind of airplane could I build for that kind of money.
Well... "what could I do/build with that kind of money" is an entirely different debate and is often the basis of many "what car" threads on this forum.
In reply to sesto elemento:
A Toyota pre-runner build with LS power? I look forward to that build thread. 
This thread is giving me bad ideas... Something about needing to add c-gussets or a truss to the front axle on the Jeep, swap in the stiffer valved rear shocks I've got sitting around, add a little chassis bracing and see what happens when I try to treat it like a Raptor...
FWIW on the road today I passed a half dozen Raptors at various points along the route. I generally tend to notice them, since they sort of stick out compared to any other pickup, so this was definitely an anomaly - even if they were scattered over ~800 miles.
I see a good half dozen of these a day in the Washington DC metro area, including two at my office. I have never seen any indication that any of them has ever driven on a gravel road, much less off-road. I mean, not that most Jeeps around here do, either.....
Do they still make a "street" halo truck...e.g. like the SVT Lightning? For where most of these trucks are actually used (the highway) one woudl think something like that would be the way to go.
irish44j wrote: I see a good half dozen of these a day in the Washington DC metro area, including two at my office. I have never seen any indication that any of them has ever driven on a gravel road, much less off-road. I mean, not that most Jeeps around here do, either..... Do they still make a "street" halo truck...e.g. like the SVT Lightning? For where most of these trucks are actually used (the highway) one woudl think something like that would be the way to go.
I live in the beltway...I have seen 1 on the street and I drive past Koon's Ford twice a day.
I really don't understand the constant bitching about truck prices hitting $60-70-80K and the lack of basic work trucks. I just went to Ford.com and checked MSPR, not my A plan. A base F150 is $26,730. How is that so expensive. We keep hearing that the average new car price is around $34K. So you can buy a new truck for over $7k less than the AVERAGE new car. Also people love talking about how things were better value 20 years ago. Let's run the inflation calculator backwards and we find that the overprice $26,730 F150 today was a hair under $17.5K 20 years ago. Still sounds good to me. What does this base truck get you? You get a 3.5L v6 giving 18/24 mpg. 6 speed auto, cheap to replace 17" tires. All the basic interior stuff you need. What is wrong with that as a basic work truck? Don't anyone dare complain that dealers don't stock them. If you run a business you sure as hell better know when you plan expenditure and have time to order a truck in advance. I've only ever once bought a vehicle off the lot rather than order it, and that was only because they happened to have the exact spec, even color I wanted sitting there. Just because you can spec a truck to $80K doesn't mean you have to. And don't bitch about a short 5.5' bed, the base trucks from 20 years ago also had 5.5' beds, a longer bed was more $$'s then as well.
Isn't the top selling vehicle in North America a truck? Truck prices are high because the manufacturers can charge high prices and still move a lot of units, it's simple supply and demand.
In reply to loosecannon:
We might be at/near a point where the demand begins to drop. Maybe Ford is pushing the envelope too far?
There are so many decent vehicles on the road now thanks to Cash for Clunkers and record new vehicle sales for several years running, that I wonder if the need for new vehicles might be slumping.
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