Because if you can afford a pre-runner for racing, you may as well do it in luxury.
For those not familiar with pre-runners, they are exactly as the name suggests; a pre-runner for checking out a racing course. In other words, you can save the proper mental race four-wheel drive for the actual race and drive the course in this. And in this case, a pre-runner with a little bit of luxury!
US-based Jimco has built and sold some incredible racing trucks over the years, and it’s now turned its attention to building some rather mental pre-runners. Specifically in this week’s Hot or Not, we’re looking at the company’s new luxury pre-runners.
The new pre-runner pictured is based upon Jimco’s ‘Victory’ pre-runner chassis, with a custom-built small block Chev V8 engine putting out 650hp of goodness. Strapped to the back of the SBC is a four-speed Turbo 400 automatic gearbox. The suspension is comprised of a Fox 3.0 coil-over-shock setup front and rear, with 26-inches of travel in the front and 32-inches of travel in the rear. For those curious about those numbers, the ‘real’ US Ford Raptor (based on the F-150) has just 13-inches front and 13.5-inches rear.
Pulling up the luxury pre-runner are Brembo brakes on all four corners, with a set of KMC bead-locked wheels wrapped in racing-spec 40-inch BFGoodrich KR3 race tyres. The body of the thing is based very loosely on a 2018 Ford Raptor F-150, however, it features mostly fibreglass panels over the Jimco chassis.
To the interior: you’ve got air-con (because you’re running this track in comfort!), custom leather race seats, Impact 5-point harnesses, a leather-covered dash, and more instruments and gauges then you can poke a race-truck at.
Now don’t get us wrong, you’ll never be able to register one of these over here, but there are a few punters in the US beginning to ask if they can be registered Stateside, and it may actually appear that they can. So, by rights, you could daily drive one of these bad boys… not behd!
