You can’t tell from the grille or graphics, but this 2018 F-150 is hiding Raptor hardware in plain sight. And there’s more to come.
There’s a lot of space between a regular F-150 and Raptor. You can view it as a performance chasm or a playground for customization. Forum member baticus (aka Brett Bates) seems to look at that gap in the latter way. He’s progressively adding more and more Raptor hardware to his 2018 Ford F-150 XLT (you can follow his build in this thread).
Bates got his truck last November with roughly 25,000 miles (40,000 kilometers) on the odometer. Like many F-150 owners, he soon started modifying it. Bates didn’t go nuts, though. He made improvements to the suspension, leveling the front end by two inches and swapping out the rear shocks for the units from a first-generation Raptor that he rebuilt himself.
The wheels and tires got an upgrade, too. Bates opted for a set of bronze 17-inch wheels surrounded by chunky off-road 35s. His rig looks noticeably different from stock, but in a restrained, tasteful way.
The next round of changes will be harder to see with a casual glance. In his build thread, Bates says, “I plan on following through with a gen 2 raptor suspension swap(with gen 1 front shocks).” He’s going to dress up the fenders and bedsides as soon as he decides whether he wants to go the OEM or aftermarket route. Electronic mods are also on Bates’s list. He’s even going to build his own dual-exhaust setup out of the X-pipe, mufflers and tips he already has. The finishers won’t exit under the rear bumper, though. Bates is going to bend his pipes so that they terminate right in front of his rear wheels, just like they do on his 2006 F-150 (which has its own build thread here).
Bates’s truck is not quite a regular F-150 and not exactly a Raptor. It’s his vision of his ideal truck rendered in rubber, glass and aluminum. Judging by what we can see, it’s off to a great start and headed toward a promising (and high-flying) future.
Derek Shiekhi's father raised him on cars. As a boy, Derek accompanied his dad as he bought classics such as post-WWII GM trucks and early Ford Mustang convertibles.
After loving cars for years and getting a bachelor's degree in Business Management, Derek decided to get an associate degree in journalism. His networking put him in contact with the editor of the Austin-American Statesman newspaper, who hired him to write freelance about automotive culture and events in Austin, Texas in 2013. One particular story led to him getting a certificate for learning the foundations of road racing.
While watching TV with his parents one fateful evening, he saw a commercial that changed his life. In it, Jeep touted the Wrangler as the Texas Auto Writers Association's "SUV of Texas." Derek knew he had to join the organization if he was going to advance as an automotive writer. He joined the Texas Auto Writers Association (TAWA) in 2014 and was fortunate to meet several nice people who connected him to the representatives of several automakers and the people who could give him access to press vehicles (the first one he ever got the keys to was a Lexus LX 570). He's now a regular at TAWA's two main events: the Texas Auto Roundup in the spring and the Texas Truck Rodeo in the fall.
Over the past several years, Derek has learned how to drive off-road in various four-wheel-drive SUVs (he even camped out for two nights in a Land Rover), and driven around various tracks in hot hatches, muscle cars, and exotics. Several of his pieces, including his article about the 2015 Ford F-150 being crowned TAWA's 2014 "Truck of Texas" and his review of the Alfa Romeo 4C Spider, have won awards in TAWA's annual Excellence in Craft Competition. Last year, his JK Forum profile of Wagonmaster, a business that restores Jeep Wagoneers, won prizes in TAWA’s signature writing contest and its pickup- and SUV-focused Texas Truck Invitational.
