RAPTOR VS RUBICON - FACTORY FIGHT CARD

SHOWROOM-STOCK 4X4s DON’T COME MORE CAPABLE THAN THE RANGER RAPTOR AND WRANGLER RUBICON, BUT WHICH ONE IS KING OF THE HILL?

- FRASER STRONACH

BEFORE YOU turn away muttering, “idiots, why compare a ute with a wagon”, consider this: both of these 4x4s will set you back the high-side of $70K on road; both are super capable off-road yet are also loaded with luxury, convenience and safety kit, and both are conceived for recreational buyers. The only other showroom stock 4x4s this capable off-road, the LandCruiser 70 and the Mercedes G-Wagen, are significantly more commercial or service in origin and presentation.

Both Raptor and Rubicon also have hightech powertrains with small-capacity turbodiesel engines and automatic gearboxes with more ratios than you would have thought possible a few years back – 18, in fact, between the two of them.

Significantly, they are also factory ‘customs’, both a good deal removed from the bread-and-butter models in their respective model line-ups. And in both cases the factory ‘modifications’ are aimed at making a more capable off-road-focused 4x4, not necessarily a better on- and off-road vehicle.

The Raptor is also the reigning 4X4 Of The Year and this all-new Rubicon may well be the next 4X4OTY; although, that’s a contest that won’t be decided until the end of the year.

In the meantime, is it Raptor or Rubicon that wins this bout?

RAPTOR

SUSPENDED IN HEAVEN

Serious chassis re-engineering, not extra power, is the ford ranger raptor’s killer punch.

THE RANGER Raptor was conceived by Ford Australia off the back of the success in the USA of the F150 Raptor, a desert-racing-inspired factory custom version of Ford’s hugely popular F150 Pick-Up. With help from Ford Performance, Ford’s global high-performance division, the Ranger Raptor was then locally developed off the back of the Ranger ute, which just happens to be largely Australian designed and developed anyway.