Hasta La Gadget!

I’ve spent time driving the Ford Raptor pickup from a couple different model years and came away impressed by the truck. The Raptor has an impressively powerful engine and the sort of lifted stance you expect to see in a desert racing truck. I’ve also spent plenty of time road racing cars over the years and one thing I can definitely say about the Raptor is that I didn’t climb into the truck thinking “let’s take this thing to the road course!”

In fact, all of the warnings on the visor about the truck flipping would seem to absolutely contraindicate driving it in a performance manner on a road course. That didn’t stop race car driver and Top Gear USA host Tanner Faust from strapping into a Ford F-150 SVT Raptor and proceeding to hoon the big truck around the famous Nürburgring’s Nordschleife track in Germany.

The fact that the Raptor is made for off-road racing didn’t keep Tanner from putting it on the pavement. He jumps the car over curbing and generally embarrasses people behind the wheel of real sports cars in an automatic transmission pickup truck.

Sadly, the promo video doesn’t show much of Tanner’s lap, spending more time focusing on him talking about how unusual it is to see a pickup of any sort cruising the streets in Germany, much less racing on one of the most famous racetracks in all the world.

[via MotorAuthority]