The Ford Motor Company of Southern Africa has produced its first batch of trial Ranger Raptor bakkies at its Silverton assembly plant, in Pretoria.

In preparation for full-scale production of the new model, the plant assembled its first ten official Ranger Raptor units as part of the tooling trials (TT) build-up phase, validating the high-tech assembly line that has received an extensive upgrade through a R3-billion investment in Ford’s local operations.

“It was a momentous occasion for everyone at Ford as we witnessed our first Ranger Raptor TT unit coming off the line after more than 18 months of extensive upgrades and modifications to the Silverton assembly plant,” comments Ford Middle East and Africa operations VP Ockert Berry.

“We continue to invest in our local operations to meet growing demand for the Ranger, and are currently introducing new equipment on the assembly line to improve the handling of the chassis turn-over, adding incremental buffers in the trim, chassis and final line, as well as new shipping conveyors in the fitment centre.

“This is an additional R160-million investment in readiness for our expanded production capacity, commencing early next year.”

Berry regards the Raptor as “an exciting and very important model for us, as it pioneers an entirely new dimension for the pick-up, or bakkie market, and represents the first Ford Performance model to be produced in South Africa, destined for export to customers throughout Europe, the Middle East and Africa”.

The Raptor is the first Ranger model to be introduced as part of the Ford Performance family.

It is powered by a new 157 kW, 500 Nm 2 l bi-turbo engine assembled at Ford’s Struandale engine plant, in Port Elizabeth, and makes use of a new ten-speed automatic transmission.

The vehicle also boasts position sensitive damping shock absorbers, manufactured by Fox, an advanced terrain management system that includes a Baja mode, a toughened reinforced chassis, all-disc braking system and specially developed BF Goodrich tyres.

The high-speed, off-road bakkie will be launched in South Africa in the first half of 2019.