After beating Ford Ranger Raptor, double cab will have a hard time holding onto its crown.
The BYD Shark this month put its money where its mouth is and dethroned the Ford Ranger Raptor in spectacular fashion as the fastest production bakkie in South Africa.
The 321kW/650Nm BYD Shark, a plug-in hybrid (PHEV) which showed up for the fight as the most powerful local bakkie, destroyed the Raptor on the drag strip. It clocked a 0 to 100km/h time of 5.66 seconds to better the 6.90 seconds set by the Ford Ranger Raptor two years ago.
The 292kW/583Nm Raptor took the crown from the 190kW VW Amarok back in 2021. Compared to the new benchmark, the Amarok’s 8.14 seconds seems very modest.
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BYD Shark makes a Pitstop
In this week’s episode of the Pitstop podcast, we analyse the data from the BYD Shark’s high-performance test. Road Test Editor Mark Jones explains how the Chinese bakkie managed to top the Ford Ranger Raptor is almost every aspect of the test.
It must be said that the Raptor’s real forte is not on tarmac, but off-road. It is a performance off-roader, which just happened to the fastest on the tarmac too because of its sheer power. At the time of its introduction, it featured a full 102kW of power more than the Amarok and The Citizen Motoring did not see its record in any danger any time soon.
ALSO READ: BYD Shark dethrones Ford Ranger Raptor as fastest bakkie in SA
The power game
But we will not make that mistake again, especially not with what is in the pipeline in terms of Chinese products. The JAC T9 PHEV produces 290kW/670Nm, while the range-extending electric Riddara RD6 features 315kW/595Nm. The Maxus eTerron 9 is a full electric bakkie that produces 325kW of power and 700Nm of torque.