With the way the economy is going, and the way gas prices have been lately, you’d think Ford was crazy to launch an all new high-performance pickup truck. Still, with their new SVT F-150 Raptor, that’s exactly what their doing.

The main difference between the F-150 Raptor and other high performance pickups including the Dodge Ram SRT-10, the Silverado SS, and Ford’s own F-150 Lightning, is this new truck’s intended use. While the others were fully equipped to meet the demands of high-performance road driving, the Raptor has the off-road covered.

This is a pre-runner style truck that can rip the trails and deserts with the best of them. The Raptor comes with all the necessary equipment to be a serious off-road weapon. The heart of the beast is a new 6.2-liter OHV V8 which should put out a square 400hp and 400ft-lbs of stump-pulling torque.

The Raptor also benefits from its own sheet metal.  From the A-pillar forward it’s all Raptor and the body panels are shared with no other truck in the Ford lineup. SVT engineers also widened the truck by 7 inches and raised it a couple of inches on Fox Racing aftermarket shocks. The Raptor also has new leaf springs and shocks, new front upper- and lower-A-arms, and a new, wider, thicker-walled rear axle to be able to cope with the off-road abuse.

All in all, this is a should be a great truck. Not a suburban pose-mobile, but an actual real truck that real truck fans can enjoy and use and abuse.  Though it seems limited, Ford reps assure us this will be a competitively priced truck with a multi- year production run. No prices have been announced yet, but expect them to come in at around $40 grand.

-Source: Motor Trend

-Photos: Ford Motor Co.