There’s a new 2021 Ford F-150 Raptor, and it’s getting a V6 as standard. That’s the same deal as the current generation. The difference is that the new Raptor will also get a Raptor R model that comes with a V8, like the original. This had me wondering: Did Ford switch up the Raptor’s engine because the six-cylinder was a dud?
The tricky thing here is that Ford does not break out any F-Series models from F-Series sales. Every year we hear about how the F-Series is “America’s favorite truck” and that it tops sales charts, but we don’t know how many of those were F-450s as opposed to F-250s, or what kinds of F-150s everyone is buying.
This is, annoyingly, standard practice in the more-is-more world of trucks. GM does the same lumping all Chevy Silverados together from the smallest single cab up to the biggest 3500 and 6500HDs, as GM Authority noted in its 2020 sales roundup.
Standard practice, yes. Annoying, also yes. I had no good way of finding out how the second-generation Raptor, the one with the EcoBoost V6, compared to the first-generation Raptor, the one with the standard V8. All I had to go on was this Edmunds article from 2013 saying that first-gen sales were doing great. It gave no hard numbers, just general percentages of Raptor sales one year versus another. What I had to do was reach out to Ford.
And Ford gave me some of what I was looking for!
Mike Levine of Ford PR quickly responded to my request for hard or soft numbers on first- versus second-generation Raptor sales:
We don’t separate F-150 Raptor sales out.
Second-gen Raptor sold more than first.
I asked if there were any percentages handy. No dice:
No. Sorry. We do not.
I wish that I had more concrete information on Raptor sales, in terms of V6 vs V8, or in terms of how big of a chunk the Raptor makes up of all F-Series sales. But I do know that the V6 doesn’t seem to have hurt the Raptor.
It sounds like the upcoming Raptor R is more of a limited-edition fan service kind of deal than an attempt to patch an image problem for sales. Honestly, I’m glad. America deserves more than people counting cylinders.