Don’t let anyone tell you that, even on the eve of mass electrification, we’re not living in the golden age of horsepower. After the loons at Ram launched their psychotic TRX, off-road gearheads knew the Blue Oval would be feverishly working on a direct rival – if they weren’t already.
Introducing the 2023 Raptor R – a V8-powered off-road pickup truck with a GT500 engine shoved up its nose. ‘Murica, indeed.
The crew at GMC has decided to launch yet another off-road special of its Sierra 1500 pickup truck, continuing GM’s collaboration with aftermarket outfit American Expedition Vehicles. The AT4X AEV is a hotted-up AT4X, which is itself a hotted-up AT4.
This brings up a question – is GM slicing its off-road pie into vanishingly small segments?
It’s tough to break into an established market where brand loyalty reigns supreme and old habits die hard. Nowhere is that more evident than with full-sized pickup trucks in America, a segment in which the Detroit Three have a stranglehold on sales. Only two other brands of late have dared try to muscle their way into the arena; in the not-too-distant future, there may be only half that number.
We’ve known for some time that the Bowtie Brigade has been busying themselves with a refresh of their midsize Colorado pickup. With a new Ranger on the way and Nissan’s new (final?) Frontier already here, you can bet Chevy won’t be caught napping in this profitable segment.
To date, we’ve been left guessing as to what styling changes GM has in store for the Colorado in ’23. A teaser video published to YouTube just last week – and the magic of well-timed screenshots – gives us our first clues for what to expect.
Gearheads with a thirst for the off-road are spoilt for choice – and there’s more on the way. Chevrolet has announced a truck at which they were strongly hinting earlier this year: The Silverado ZR2 Bison.
If there’s one thing on which the moneyed set can be counted, it’s to do everything in the extreme. Witness the Mercedes-AMG G 63 4×42, an immensely powerful SUV with portal axles which will surely see duty on the mean streets of Beverly Hills.
Bent on turning its Raptor trim into a wide-reaching line of off-road-ready rigs, Ford will be applying the name to not just its F-150 but also upcoming variants of the Bronco and Ranger. While this isn’t new information – after all, Jim Farley himself tweeted about the Ranger Raptor earlier this year and the Bronco Raptor is currently being driven in California – it is neat to learn the truck has shown up on the company’s build-and-price tool Down Under.
If one simply must always take a septet of their closest mates with them into the countryside, they’ll be thrilled to know Land Rover has finally launched a long-promised three-row variant of the Defender. Called the 130, a number which no longer has much to do with its wheelbase, the veddy British truck features an extended body for greater interior space.
If you prefer to share your Land Rover with 7 of yer mates while on the way to a fox hunt, the British brand will soon have just the rig for you. Set to be called the Defender 130, it’ll stretch the existing SUV by more than a few inches to make room for extra passengers.
The words ‘all-new’ and ‘seismic shift’ are too frequently hurled around by those who peck their way around a keyboard between visits to shrimp-laden buffet tables. Still, when the country’s best-selling vehicle – the image of which is so closely tied to America that it might as well have a baseball hat and an apple pie in its glovebox – is fitted with an entirely new method of powering its way down the freeway and around job sites, even the j-j-jaded TTAC team will sit up and take interest.
Compared to other efforts in the electric pickup truck space, such as ridiculously angular examples loudly and annoyingly defended by fanbois jihads groups of rabid admirers, the Ford F-150 Lightning actually exists in vast numbers and is actively being cranked out of a factory near Detroit. There’s no shortage of vaporware in the EV truck segment, with numerous Barnum-like companies making grandiose promises amounting to naught, taking the hopes and cash of others down along with them.
With the F-150 Lightning, Ford is definitely *not* peddling vaporware. It’s here, it’s real, and we drove several examples last week in – where else? – Texas.
This is the third-generation Range Rover Sport, a model at which some traditionalists originally sneered but which has done much for the fortunes (and sales volume) of the British brand. Offering all the RR swagger in a tidy package, this thing has been a darling in the moneyed set for nearly two decades.
The newest one, unveiled earlier today across the pond, will be offered with a variety of powertrains including – you guessed it – an all-electric model in the next couple of years.
To say the first quarter of 2022 was a strange period for car sales would be to sorely understate the situation, akin to saying Vesuvius just barely covered Pompeii. Toyota kept its crown in America, models long out of production recorded sales, and GM beat Ford over the head in trucks.
Wait, what?
Choosing the right spec of a pickup is fraught with danger since it is unlikely any two truck customers have the same needs. Jim might need a base two-wheel-drive regular cab for chores on the farm while Bill could be after a Crew Cab monster to tow the family camper.
Nevertheless, we shall try. Consider the following as a selection of F-150 which is likely to be pressed into runs to the hockey rink and the scattered bit of towing on the weekends, mixed with a decent amount of useful new tech. In other words, the one this author would buy.
Every year, gearheads at Jeep make a pilgrimage to the off-road mecca that is Moab, bringing along a yaffle of concept vehicles. Some of these rigs point to a future model, others too-cool restomods, and a few are tremendously bonkers one-offs.
We’re not entirely sure into which category today’s teaser will fall but, knowing Jeep, there’s a decent chance they’ll be putting this terrifically overpowered off-roader into production.
If any readers have a certain spec of Blue Oval workhorse in their fleet, they best pay attention to a recent recall from Ford. The company is recalling 223,628 Super Duty pickups to deal with an issue of faulty powertrain components. At fault are driveshafts that can apparently fracture under a specific set of conditions.
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