The Ford Raptor family just got a little bit bigger and a whole lot more interesting with the arrival of the Bronco Raptor. This means it’s not all about pickups, so maybe Ford is crazy enough to let vans go faster… at least in concept.
Call it Ford Performance or SVT, the Blue Oval brand has many more performance vehicle projects under its belt. And these don’t just include traditional American powerhouses like the Mustang or GT. No, over in Europe, normal cars have been the ones going sporty.
We’re referring to classics like the Escort Cosworth and the crazy Focus RS of only a few years ago. But Ford has a huge impact on the European van landscape. While VW makes the timeless, understated models, Ford has the ones that handle well and have a great steering feel.
They’d be perfect for a performance makeover, though it obviously wouldn’t be mass-produced. Over the years, there have been multiple attempts, including putting a Jaguar V8 in the middle of a Transit or an RS engine in the smaller Connect model.
But this rendering by jlord8 takes the cake. It’s a Transit Raptor, meaning it’s received a taller suspension, underbody protection, and gigantic off-road tires. Obviously, a more powerful engine would also be required. And the ideal candidate would either be one of the Bronco’s smaller EcoBoost setups or a twin-turbo diesel.
Let’s jump into the RMP Potential (real project in the making), where I’ll give this a huge score of 8.5/10. That’s because Raptorized Transits already exist to a degree.
That grille you see is not rendered; last year Ford made an Active package for the Transit, essentially the Audi Allroad treatment for a van. What’s even stranger is that a Russian specialist shop called Ford Market made a Raptor 6×6 van about a year ago. The asterisk would be that it’s based on the Econoline van, so it has more in common with the F-150 than a Transit.
But if Mercedes can make a serious off-roader out of an E-Class, Ford clearly can do the same with the Transit. It certainly has the racing/rallying know-how.
