Truck YeahThe trucks are good!The 2019 Ford Ranger is alright looking, and its not-for-American-consumption sister the Everest SUV is pretty cool. But they both look like absolute monsters when they’re kitted out for an actual theatre of war. Go figure.
French defense company Arquus, which I only discovered yesterday after seeing clips of its four-wheel steering Scarabée in action, also apparently upfits regular 4x4s for military and law enforcement work in addition to building behemoth war machines.
The company’s take on the Ranger, which it calls Trigger, and versions of the Everest, known as Trapper and VT4, might suddenly be some of my favorite trucks.
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The VT4 in particular is bristling with cool-looking accessories to make it more practical for being used in hostile environments. Also; the thing would look great with a “ Jurassic Park” emblem on the door.
“The VT4 is a 4×4, non-armored, light and versatile vehicle, designed for command post and liaison missions,” Arquus states. I think that might be army talk for “ cruising around with the boys” but maybe someone with experience in the armed forces can articulate that a little better in the comment section.
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A French government website lays out the main specs as: 2.2-liter diesel engine, 2,072-pound payload capacity (holy crap, that’s a lot) with a top speed of 103 mph and a 435-mile range.
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That rear bumper is beautiful and simple steel wheels make all trucks tougher, so I am 100 percent here for this. Here’s a clip of the thing in action. The narration’s in French, but, you can get the idea from the visuals. Cool truck go splashy:
The Trapper just looks like an earlier version of the VT4, but I like how you can see its sweet headlight cages in high contrast with the desert paint. Oh, did you want to see more of this thing mulching through mud pits? OK:
As for the Trigger pickup truck, Arquus’s take on the Ranger looks a little like a pint-sized version of the AEV Prospector Ram. Big beefy bumper, snorkel, and a tray bed. Of course the Trigger has also been known to tote a quite a pea-shooter on its rear deck there.
Now there’s a sinister tool-of-ruthless-totalitarian-dictator-looking vehicle I wouldn’t mind being terrorized by! Kidding, of course, that would be horrible. But like most matte-black vehicles with weapons mounted on them the Trigger is a weird kind of cool-looking that’s decidedly ominous at the same time.
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Anyway, I’m sure Arquus is making plenty of money selling these things to people who get shot at for a living, but I worked in sales over there I’d be figuring out how to sell these bumpers and gas can holders to people in Huntington Beach.
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Maybe not the gun, though.
For now, it looks like these machines are mostly employed by French authorities but I know a lot of people who would rock the heck out of some of these accessories on their mall crawlers here in the good ol’ U S of A.
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