There is a new 2021 Ford F-150 Raptor, and is receiving a V6 as standard. It is the same business as the current generation. The difference is that the new Raptor will also receive a Model Raptor R that comes with a V8, like the original. It made me wonder: did Ford change the Raptor’s engine because the six-cylinder was a failure?
The trickiest thing here is that Ford does not take out any F Series models from sales. Every year we hear about how the F-Series is “America’s favorite truck” and which tops the sales charts, but we don’t know how many of them were F-450s as opposed to F-250s, or what types of F-150s everyone is buying.
This is, irritatingly, standard practice in the plus-and-plus world of trucks. GM does the same by grouping all Chevy Silverados together, from the smallest single cabin to the largest 3500 and 6500HDs, as GM authority noted in its 2020 sales summary.
Standard practice, Yes. Irritating, too. I didn’t have a good way of finding out how the second generation Raptor, the one with EcoBoost V6, compared to the first generation Raptor, the one with the standard V8. All I had to continue was this 2013 Edmunds article saying that first generation sales were going really well. It did not provide concrete figures, only general percentages of Raptor sales in one year over the next. What I needed to do was get in touch with Ford.
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And Ford gave me some of what I was looking for!
Mike Levine, from Ford PR responded quickly to my order for fixed or flexible numbers in first and second generation Raptor sales:
We do not separate the sales of the F-150 Raptor.
The second-generation Raptor sold more than the first.
I asked if there was any useful percentage. No data:
No. Sorry. We do not.
I would like to have more concrete information about the Raptor’s sales, in terms of V6 vs V8, or in terms of how big the Raptor piece is in all F series sales But I know that the V6 doesn’t seem to have hurt Raptor .
It looks like the next Raptor R is more of a limited edition fan service business than an attempt to fix a sales image problem. Honestly, I’m happy. America deserves more than people counting cylinders.