Ford is gearing up to kick off full-scale production on its second-generation F-150 Raptor this month, and the Blue Oval announced today it is now accepting orders for the off-road truck at dealerships and online.
Ford claims the popularity for the new truck is so high that it has already seen 90,000 hits in the first 10 days on the price configurator site on Ford.com. Pricing for the new Raptor will start at an MSRP of $49,520. The big news for the purpose-built off-road is the subtraction of the 6.2-liter V8 engine and addition of a new high-output, twin-turbo 3.5-liter EcoBoost V6, which Ford says is rated 450 hp and 510 lb.-ft. of torque, a 21 percent improvement in power-to-torque ratio over the previous version. The Raptor will also boast Ford’s new 10-speed transmission as well, which will also be fitted on the 2017 F-150.
Ford notes that one of its dealerships, Team Ford in Las Vegas, already has almost 300 people on the waiting list. Its owner, Steve Olliges, who races Raptor professionally off-road, says he’s currently fielding a few calls a day from prospective buyers from across the country.
“It’s a great problem to have, but it’s tough, because there’s so much interest in the product,” says Olliges. “We do everything we can to get our hands on Raptor for our customers, whether that’s referring them to other Ford dealers or making calls to find the truck for them.”
Ford does not publicly disclose production numbers for its truck, but of the Raptors scheduled for production the company will say that 65 percent of the orders are identified as retail orders for a specific customer, with the biggest markets so far being Texas, California and Florida.
“This is one of the fastest and most popular product launches we’ve seen in some time,” says said Rob Rosenbach, Ford F-150 brand manager. “Traffic volume on the Raptor pages is more than five times our other performance vehicle lines, with dealer demand far ahead of expectations. This demonstrates the Ford Performance team hit its mark with the new F-150 Raptor.”
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