Hoonicorn Mustang vs Raptor Trophy Truck: The Ultimate Battle!
One’s a drifting legend. The other’s a desert demon. When they come together, though, Raptor and Mustang fans can both rejoice!
The Raptor is a versatile pickup. It carry and pull loads like the rest of the F-Series family. It can also do pulls off the line at the local drag strip, then throw rooster tails all over the desert trail. There aren’t that many things the high-performance pickup can’t handle.
Except, perhaps, a Mustang on steroids. The Hoonigan crew recently filmed a series of drag races between the Hoonicorn of Ken Block against all comers. One of them happens to be the Raptor trophy truck campaigned by three-time Baja 500 winner Bryce Menzies. One’s a drifting legend. The other’s a desert demon. Both are out of their element. It’s just a matter of by how much.
“It’s made to go through the desert extremely fast,” said Menzies. “Almost 7,000 pounds, that’s what’s crazy. So much weight. Six-speed. Has a 555 big block. Thirty inches of wheel travel, so it can go over bumps [at] 145 miles an hour.”
Menzies says the Raptor’s four-wheel drive system is new to trophy trucks overall, due to how long it took to make the front-end components as beefy as the rear. The six-speed sequential gear box with flappy paddles is also new to the sport, as such trucks ran only three-speed automatics before. The new transmission allows Menzies’ Raptor to “get off the line [and] through the corners because they weigh so much.”
“It is a ’65 Ford Mustang notchback,” said Block. “Roush-Yates motor. It’s basically the motor that they would use for NASCAR, but it’s been modified […] If you look, the reason why the motor sits where it sits is because it sits behind the front diff.”
Like the Raptor, the Hoonicorn uses a sequential six-speed, though Block has to pull a shifter to go through the gears. It also has 1,400 horsepower, compared to the Raptor’s 950, and wears DOT-legal Toyo R888Rs, known for gettin’ sticky real quick. Finally, it weighs 4,000 pounds less than the trophy truck. Looks like things are gonna get sticky real quickly.
On the first run, the Raptor stuns as it falls to the Hoonicorn with a stick wheelie, losing by four car lengths. After dropping the two spares on top of the big V8, plus getting the hit, the Raptor falls again to the monster Mustang. On the third and final run, with a shorter distance and a two-car-length advantage, the Raptor loses again. It’s hard to beat a leviathan like Block’s Hoonicorn, though.
“Well, it turns out she was not made to drag-race,” said Menzies. That said, the Raptor was made to make donuts, including some cinnamon sugar ones. All in all, everyone wins, especially with two epic Fords like these.
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