Most right-minded people agree that the Ford Raptor is a sweet ride.
However, as much as I admire Fox Racing suspension components, flared fenders, and massive off-road tires, you’ve got to admit that the Raptor’s talents are on the esoteric side. Off-roading is a pretty niche hobby in the first place (despite what Land Rover and Jeep would have you believe), and the F-150 SVT Raptor is designed for a specific kind of off-roading-high-speed desert-running. And who really does that on a regular basis?
The U.S. Border Patrol, that’s who. Most of the U.S./Mexico border is an arbitrary line across the desert, and we haven’t gotten around to paving much of it. Which means that the people tasked with patrolling that border are basically professional off-roaders. They might see pavement in the morning when they leave the house and again when they head home, but in the interim they’re driving across dunes, hard-packed sand, and dry riverbeds — basically prerunning the Baja 1000, 365 days a year. These people need Raptors.
Unfortunately for them, they don’t have any. Yet. Without getting into the arcane details of government procurement procedures, it seems that there was some kind of a problem with the Raptor’s leather interior — the gub’mint couldn’t buy trucks with fancy cowskins inside, and Ford didn’t build Raptors any other way. They got the situation resolved, and a batch of Raptors are destined for the Border Patrol. But the Yuma County Sheriff’s Department is one step ahead.
Full story: On Patrol in a 2010 Ford F-150 SVT Raptor – Automobile Magazine