Video: 2022 Ford Bronco Raptor: Up Close

It's a Baja race truck that you could buy off the showroom floor and still commute in comfortably every day. And the second Raptor model, well, we don't get that in the United States. That's the Ranger Raptor based on the midsize pickup. Now, you can't buy that here yet, but one that you will be able to buy fairly soon in the United States is the third Raptor model in the family, and it's this. This is the new 2022 Ford Bronco Raptor, and its mission is a little bit different than its bigger brother, the F-150. You see, the F-150 is meant to be that high-speed Baja racer that can go blasting across the California desert at high speeds. And while the Bronco Raptor is going to have to do that too, Ford says that it also has to be a better all around off-roader. It has to do rock crawling. It has to do short courses, like the one that I'm on right now, and in creating the new Ford Bronco Raptor, they've taken some pieces from the F-150 Raptor and created some things uniquely their own to create something that could be called maybe the best off-road vehicle ever made. Now, full disclosure, Ford hasn't led us behind the wheel of a new Bronco Raptor yet. We're in Michigan. It's the middle of January. This is really not the appropriate environment for introducing the new '22 Bronco Raptor. We really need to be out somewhere in the American Southwest, where we can take one of these things up to speed and go blasting across the desert. But they have invited us out here to have a closer look at it so we can take you through the new '22 Bronco Raptor, and show you exactly, well, how to spot one, and what's under the hood. First of all, how to spot a Bronco Raptor versus a normal Bronco. It's actually fairly easy. Look at this thing. The fender flares are really what give it away. Now, why do we have such wide fender flares? Well, the tires themselves are enormous, 37-inch BF Goodrich KO2s. They are off-road tires, and they are some of the best in the business. But the reason that we have the flares is because they have to be pushed out of the vehicle as far as possible in order to retain suspension travel: 13 inches of suspension travel in the front, 14 inches of suspension travel in the rear, which is significantly more than you'd get on a base Bronco. The axles have also been upgraded. You've got a new and upgraded Dana 44 in the front, and you have a completely new Dana 50 in the rear. Along the side you've also got these standard rock rails that can support the weight of the vehicle, but you've also got these removable running boards. When you get to the actual trail, they unbolt really quite easily, just leaving the rock rails for the protection of the vehicle. Out back, there are some new tail lights as well. These don't look like your standard Bronco tail lights, and they're not. They actually had to be redesigned and placed outboard a little bit more in order to accommodate the blind spot warning detection. The fender flares are so wide, they actually had to redesign them so that the blind spot detection would work. The rear tire carrier has also been reinforced because the 37-inch tires and 17-inch beadlock wheels are so heavy that well, frankly, it needed a little bit more reinforcement. You also have a three element center high-mounted stoplight. It has to have these three elements along with some additional lighting on the outside of the Bronco Raptor, because the thing is over 80 inches wide. And by law, it has to have some extra lighting on it, just like the F-150 Raptor. When the Bronco Raptor's coming at you, the way to spot one is through the grille. It's got that open Ford script, like we've seen on the Ford F-150 Raptor as well, but it also does improve the cooling for the three-liter V6 engine. You've also got some unique fog lights in the bumper as well, but only the center ones are going to be open and exposed when you buy your Ford Bronco Raptor. These are actually going to have caps on them that you can remove yourself, but by law, you're apparently not allowed to have that many auxiliary lights on the front of your vehicle open and exposed. The hood itself is also new. It's made out of sheet molding compound, which to you and me means plastic, but it does have a molded-in color heat extractor out the top, and you also have some new heat extraction vents on the side as well. All these heat extractors are probably a good idea, because the new Bronco Raptor is going to be powered by an upgraded version of the three-liter twin turbo EcoBoost V6 engine. Now, Ford says that it's going to make about 400 horsepower, but they haven't quite nailed down that figure yet. The engine is still in development, but given that its main competitor, the Jeep Wrangler 392 makes 470 horsepower, I would hope that they could get a little bit more than 400 out of the EcoBoost engine, but I wouldn't hold your breath. Ford has also upgraded a lot of the stuff that you can't see on the Ford Bronco Raptor. It uses a very similar suspension setup to the Ford F-150 Raptor as well, including the Fox live valve shocks, the Fox 3.1 internal bypass semi-active dampers. They're very similar to the F-150 Raptors in the front, but in the rear, it's a completely new configuration. You've also got full underbody skid plate protection to keep everything nice and pristine when you're out rock crawling and flying across the desert. Brakes have also seen a significant upgrade. It actually uses the F-150 Raptor's brakes, front and rear. Inside, the Bronco Raptor does get a few different upgrades than a normal Bronco does. If you opt for the leather interior, you can either get a black one, or this really cool blue one. The orange stitching comes regardless of which color you choose, and it comes in the dash. It comes in the steering wheel. It's in the seats as well. You can even get orange seat belts, which I think look really pretty fantastic. You do get a 12-inch digital gauge cluster that has a lot of very unique Bronco Raptor graphics in it. And you get the steering wheel, which is also unique to the Raptor. It has four specific buttons along the bottom that help you control a number of the Raptor systems, like this one changes the steering settings. You've got one for the suspension. You've got one for the valved exhaust to make it louder or quieter as you want. And you also have a Raptor button. You can actually change number of different settings on the Bronco Raptor, and then store them as your own personal My Mode feature, and all you have to do to activate it is just push the Raptor button whenever you get to a trail or out into the desert, and it turns them all on. You push the Raptor button again, turns them all off, and you're ready to commute back home. We also have the GOAT Mode selector here, but there are seven modes for the Bronco Raptor, the seventh being the Baja Mode, which actually changes quite a bit about the vehicle, specifically the engine. It keeps the turbos on boost a lot more so that it has much more immediate impact to acceleration, according to Ford. So we're gonna need to test that as soon as we're able to actually, you know, drive this thing somewhere. The Bronco Raptor comes with a vinyl washout floor, which is probably pretty useful, but you can upgrade to more premium models that actually have carpeting and this vinyl top dash. All Bronco Raptors now have two crossbars over the center B pillar and the rear C pillar. This one is made out of aluminum. The back one is made out of a carbon composite, and they're meant to increase the structural rigidity of the Bronco Raptor, which is really probably what you want if you're gonna be jumping this thing at high speed across the desert. Hopefully sometime soon, we're gonna get behind the wheel of the new '22 Bronco Raptor, and hopefully it's somewhere that has either cactus and/or palm trees, and not the frozen tundra of Michigan. Ordering for the new Bronco Raptor actually opens in March. And if you are one of the people that still has a Bronco reservation on order, you're actually going to be offered the opportunity to upgrade to the Bronco Raptor first. Now, we don't know how much it's going to cost yet, but it's a pretty sure bet that it's not going to be cheap. When we do have more information about the new Bronco Raptor, you'll find it all on cars.com. Yeah, that's cool. That's really cool.