10 Vehicles In Need Of An Off-Road Raptor-style Makeover

Reports of Ford showing what looks like a Mustang Raptor to an inner circle of dealers, alongside an upcoming four-door Mustang sedan, should have fans of Baja and rally racing excited to see how this thing will perform in the dirt. More than that, it sparks the imagination. There are plenty of off-roaders, light off-roaders, and not-really-off-roaders-at-all we’d love to see get the Raptor treatment so that they can hit high speeds and sideways turns no matter the terrain.

To get a clear idea of what we mean by “the Raptor treatment,” let’s take a look at the Ford F-150 Raptor package for 2024, which packs a set of 2.5-inch FOX Live Valve shocks, is full-time 4×4 with electronically controlled front and rear locking differentials, its track width has been stretched to a minimum of 74 inches in the front, and 73.6 in the back, compared to a width of 67.9/68.3 front/back in the standard F-150. Then you’ve got up to 14 inches of suspension travel, chunky off-road tires, and at least a foot of ground clearance compared to a maximum of 9.8 inches in the standard model.

Some of those numbers might have to be toned down when applied to a coupe or a sedan, unless you want a two-seater that looks like it’s walking on stilts, but you get the idea. It’s all about ground clearance, long-travel suspension and a wide track so you can drift, jump, and zip around deserts and dirt tracks as easily as a supercar handles the blacktop. With that in mind, here are ten vehicles we think would be a lot of fun to rig up for high-speed joyrides on sand dunes and dirt tracks.

1 Subaru WRX

The Subaru WRX is a given for this list. It’s pretty much the last of its kind as a rally sport-inspired sedan still hanging in there on the U.S. market, and it’s already been designed from the ground up for dirt-track performance, with excellent all-wheel drive handling and generous ground clearance. The WRX is halfway to being a Raptor-style off-roader to begin with, it just needs a wider track, a couple more inches of ground clearance (it currently stands at 5.1-5.9 inches, depending on the trim), and a suspension system that can handle jumping off sand dunes.

2 Toyota RAV4

The Toyota RAV is available in Adventure and TRD Off-Road trims that will take you over some pretty rough terrain. However, there’s no version of the RAV4 currently built for sporty, high-speed off-roading. It’s a surprisingly capable SUV when it comes to low-and-slow rock crawling, and it’ll get you to the campsite and back, but you can forget about slinging it around hairpin corners.

The RAV4 is available in a hybrid variant that bumps the base 203 horsepower up to 219 hp, but the 265-hp 2.4-liter turbo-four found in the Highlander might be more fun for rallying if you were to get the RAV4’s ground clearance up, and added some skid plates.

3 Ford Bronco Sport

The Ford Bronco has been offered as a Raptor model ever since 2022, but we like the idea of tearing up sand and dirt tracks in the iconic SUV’s turbocharged Sport baby brother. To be more specific, we want to see what kind of air we can catch in this little monster. The Bronco Raptor tips the scales at a curb weight of 5,733 lbs, making it heavier than most F-150s by a wide margin.

The Bronco Sport weighs in at a relatively svelte 3,707 lbs, at its heaviest. If you can bring the 8.8 inches of ground clearance up with a set of shocks built to stick the landing, the 250-horse Badlands 4×4 model seems just about ready to sprout wings.

4 Mazda CX-50

The Mazda CX-50 is a cool looking crossover. It’s got a rugged profile and a front-end that just screams for a set of bullbars and some piercing fog lamps. It’s AWD-standard with 8.6 inches of ground clearance and an off-road driving mode, so it’s already somewhat built for adventuring. The CX-50 is also available with a turbo version of its base engine, and it looks the part, so Raptor-style suspension is pretty much all it needs to complete the package.

5 Rivian R1S

Built on the same platform as the Rivian R1T pickup, the Rivian R1S is an off-road monster just waiting to be unleashed. The adjustable suspension can be lifted up to an imposing 14.9 inches, and it’s got one of the most powerful AWD systems on the planet, so it just needs some meaty tires and high-impact shocks for hopping around the desert.

At present, Ford has not confirmed any plans for an F-150 Lightning Raptor (though we do have the one-off Lightning Switchgear to give us an idea of what that might look like), meaning that Rivian could be first to market with an all-electric, full-size Baja-style production truck.

6 Toyota Camry

Toyota Camry drivers all over the world treat these things like they’re Ford Raptors, sliding around in the Outback, the Sahara, and Southwestern backroads, so why not just make it official? It’s the top-selling passenger car in the U.S., so there’s probably a market for an off-road version. It’s already available in AWD, and you’ve got up to 63/63.6 inches of ground clearance, front/rear, to start out with.

Our vision would be to start with the TRD V6 automatic model and build from there. We’re not exactly anti-CVT, but you want to hear those gears winding up in a V6 rally car. This wouldn’t be the Camry’s first rodeo, as it competed in a 3,675-mile rally back in 2018, and there are some cop-spec Camrys out there built to tear up a backroad, so this is about letting the public in on the fun.

7 Honda Civic Type-R

The Honda Civic Type-R is not available in all-wheel drive, but the Honda CR-V, with which it shares its platform, is. So we feel safe in suggesting that the basic architecture is there to lift the iconic hot-hatch up off the ground and distribute the power to all four wheels. There’s a certain type of driver who likes the idea of off-roading in a small coupe or sedan, but they’re more attracted to hot hatches and Japanese tuner cars than they are to pony cars. Hence, the need for a rugged all-terrain Type R, where the R would stand for rally.

8 Nissan Titan

The Nissan Titan is on its way out, owing to diminishing sales, and it’s a darn shame because the Titan was always a capable, reliable machine, whether it was your work-horse or your daily driver. For a Raptorized model, we’d start with the Pro-4X Off-Road trim, built on the long-wheelbase Titan XD. The XD starts off with 8.7 inches of ground clearance, so we want to get that number up by about four inches, widen the 68.4/68.6 front/rear tracks as far as they’ll go, stretch the travel suspension, add some capable performance shocks, and we’re basically set.

Our thought is, whatever stock doesn’t sell by the end of the year, rebuild and rebrand them as a limited edition Baja-style trophy truck, and go out with a bang.

9 Kia Sorento

The Kia Sorento is admittedly the least exciting vehicle on this list. Even within the not-that-exciting-in-the-first-place mid-size family SUV segment, it doesn’t really stand out and here’s why we like it for an off-roader. First off, it’s cheap, and secondly, it’s relatively small for its class, and we feel like a super dunebuggy-style trim would be just the thing to make it special.

The ideal starting point for a Raptor-style Kia would be the X-Line EX AWD model packing a turbocharged four-cylinder that gets the 0-60 time down to 6.5 seconds. We’re not saying the Sorento isn’t a solid candidate for the Raptor treatment on its own merits, but we’ll be honest, the best thing about driving this SUV around mud pits and dunes at high speeds is that it’s a Kia, so who cares if it gets a little banged up.

10 Dodge Hornet

A rebadged Alfa Romeo Tonale, the Dodge Hornet is available as a 288-horsepower, 1.3-liter four-cylinder hybrid, or with a naturally aspirated 268-hp 2.0-liter four-cylinder engine. We like the ICE model for an off-roader, with its nine-speed automatic transmission. Debuting in early 2023, this potent little subcompact SUV sold just 9,314 units last year, and it’s only sold 11,718 for 2024, coming up shy of 2,000 sales every month since April.

It’s a fine little SUV and more fun to drive than you expect for this segment, and it’s a shame that it’s not exactly setting the world on fire. Besides the fact that we want to take a Dodge subcompact over a sand dune, we’re pitching the Hornet as a high-speed off-road vehicle largely because that’s exactly the kind of trim it needs to break out of the doldrums and remind the public that it’s not just another tiny SUV.