When Cars Get Named After Famous Carnivores

A lot goes into a car manufacturer naming a car. Though must luxury brands eschew traditional names, for manufacturers lower on the totem pole, the marketing goal becomes obvious in the choice of the name. Some examples of this are the Tundra, Highlander, Mustang or even Suburban. Other times, names are just made up like Sentra, Maxima or Acadia. What the heck is a Corolla anyway?

Today I read the first reviews for Ford's Special Vehicle Team's Raptor. Yes. That's right, Raptor. You remember the Raptors from Jurassic Park right? Those were those beady-eyed miniature T-Rex pack hunters that killed three fourths of the cast in every movie.

Ford has much to admire these days. They are the only one of the big three not to declare BK and so far they haven't taken any Federal Bailout money either. Plus the product line has improved as well.

Ford's SVT heretofore has focused nearly exclusively on traditional performance models, like the SVT Cobra Mustang, the Focus SVT and even the Ford Lightening (Ford's prior ridiculously fast F-150). But with the Raptor, the SVT has now focused on off-road performance. In fact, with the Raptor, they just went plain old insane.

If your reading this, take a moment to check out the video introduction to the Raptor. You know it's going to be good when they lead with a huge legal disclaimer (the usual: closed course, professional driver, we would never encourage you to actually do this at home). The disclaimer is followed by Van Halenesque metal music and video of the Raptor doing seventy in the desert.

Half-way through the videos I'm already thinking that surely there must be a way I can drop forty large for a truck that I can take on jumps.

Just imagine being the guy at work on Monday, who purchased a Prius the same weekend as the guy who bought the Raptor. You bought a what?

Look at the Raptor grill. You can read Ford from space!

The Raptor is proof positive that when you get a bunch of car guys together, remove all pretense of political correctness and let them build away, you end up with something pretty cool. And marketable too.

It also shows the lunacy of a Government controlled industry. Do you really think GM would build the Raptor now?