HOLLY, Mich. — The North American Truck of the Year contest this year featured an impressive variety of pickups that included the GMC Sierra EV, Rivian R1T and Ram 1500.

But the marquee matchup is a fight between two midsize truck icons: the Ford Ranger and Toyota Tacoma.

The titans have both completely redesigned their vehicles for this historic showdown with multiple trim and engine options. But the headliners for both trucks are their off-road beasts, the Ranger Raptor and Tacoma TRD Pro, which show off the truck warriors’ full arsenal from performance tires to tech to interior comfort.

I’m a juror for the North American Car, Truck and Utility of the Year awards, and I spent a day with these two dirt-kickers in their natural habitat: Holly Oaks Off-Road Vehicle Park. Get ready for Detroit vs. Tokyo. Kong vs. Godzilla. Raptor vs. Taco.

Ford, of course, is the undisputed king of trucks, selling over 700,000 pickups a year in the full-size segment. But like its GM brethren, it’s fallen behind Toyota in the midsize game, which the Japanese automaker has dominated for the last two decades. The 2024 Ranger is a serious effort to counter that.

Tacoma is Toyota’s franchise truck, and its hugely anticipated 2024 model is the pickup's first makeover since 2015 as the brand tries to keep a herd of competitors — Ranger, Chevrolet Colorado, GMC Canyon, Nissan Frontier, Jeep Gladiator — at bay. The brand hit it out of the park with an aggressive design, superb interior and first-in-segment hybrid powertrain for an off-road trio of models: Frontier, TRD and TRD Pro.

After taking a hiatus from the mid-market from 2011-18 to concentrate on its franchise truck — the full-size, aluminum-bodied F-150 — Ford is back and on the attack to try to dethrone Toyota. Along with the GM twins — Colorado ZR2 and Canyon AT4 off-road bruisers — Ford has brought the first Ranger Raptor performance model to take on the mighty TRD Pro in the U.S. market.

It is a treat.

You know this is a special athlete long before you wade into Holly Oaks' formidable trails. The Raptor felt like a sports car on 33-inch all-terrain tires on my road trip up Telegraph Road. Taut steering, solid chassis, tuned Fox exterior reservoir performance shocks.

Holly Oaks’ 200-acre sandbox was alive on a November Saturday with ATVs, motorbikes, side-by-sides, Jeeps and Broncos. I attached my orange off-road flag, spun the rotary electronic controller to BAJA mode and charged over narrow Darlene’s Ridge, its high dirt walls just inches from the truck’s flanks. No worries.

The Raptor was as precise off-road as it was on-road. Gaining confidence, I roared into Lollipop on Holly's Back 60, the Raptor cutting through the muck like Lions' running back David Montgomery through defenders — the front end hitting its marks, the rear end sliding into place like it was on rails. BWAAAAGGGGHH! roared the twin-turbo V-6 (shared with the Bronco Raptor), a nice soundtrack for this four-wheeled off-road rock star.

Ford has clearly leveraged its racing experience with F-150 and Bronco — witness Baja 1000 and King of Hammers wins — to produce another Raptor warrior.

Over the same terrain, the TRD Pro was a blast, if not the Raptor’s performance equal. Also sporting tuned Fox shocks, TRD was less precise, though its softer setup beautifully absorbed the dips and moguls of Holly Oaks.

Ranger’s supreme confidence was on display on the technical Mt. Magna section of the park. Approaching The Steps (literally, a staircase that vehicles can climb, then descend), Ranger not only conquered the staircase in four-wheel drive — but also rear-wheel drive. The Toyota, meanwhile, refused to climb the steps due to overly cautious safety systems.

Please Nanny, let me play!

Climbing the formidable Mashed Potato section of Mt. Magna, the Ford charged right up whether I used the locking rear differential for better traction or not. The Toyota? I had to engage the rear locker.

Though the Raptor also adds a front locker, the Toyota offers a deeper toolbox. The TRD Pro doesn’t cost $65,395 — versus the $57,315 Ranger — for brand cred alone. The Toyota has better pickup specs like towing and payload capacities. And it’s armed with better front approach angle/ground clearance and a disconnecting front sway bar so it can go places the Raptor can’t. Like rock trails.

I disconnected the TRD Pro’s front bar — freeing each front wheel to find its own level for better traction — and improbably navigated a rocky gulch that was a challenge for me to walk up, for goodness sake.

The Raptor’s talent — like big brother F-150 and Bronco — is speed and handling. Given its gym-toned athleticism, you would expect the Ford to look the part. See an F-150 or Bronco Raptor approaching in your mirrors and you’ll jump. But Ranger Raptor is the stealthiest performance truck in the segment.

The Taco, on the other hand, wears a muscle shirt of fender flares, hood scoop and lantern jaw. This thing looks like it eats Priuses for lunch.

The testosterone continues inside. The dash and console are squared off like they were chiseled from stone. Big, meaty knobs anchor the console and look like they should be turned with a wrench. The Ford sports the brand’s signature design — big vertical screen, central volume knob, lovely digital instrument display. It’s handsome but lacks Taco’s toughness.

Presence matters when you’re buying a performance truck, and the TRD Pro has it in spades. Note to Raptor: dude, your wardrobe could use a hood scoop ‘n’ fender flares. Consistent with the Toyota’s bigger toolkit, TRD Pro also reflects the Tacoma lineup’s variety with eight total trims, multiple off-road models (TRD Pro, Trailhunter, TRD PreRunner, TRD Sport, TRD Off-Road), and a choice of bed and cabin lengths. Heck, the Toyota even offers a manual shifter option. The Ranger is less generous with four trims, no manual and a 5-foot bed.

Still, when it comes to the halo trucks, it’s the Ranger that packs the most value with its $57K sticker compared to TRD Pro’s $65K. That’s perilously close to the $70K Ram RHO (nickname, Rhino) supertruck, which takes performance to a whoooole ‘nother level.

It took awhile, but the Raptor vs. TRD Pro truck war is finally here. Who you root for will probably depend on how you spend your weekends. If you like to eat dirt (me), the Raptor is superior. If your weekend diet is more civilized, the Taco is plenty meaty.

2024 Ford Ranger Raptor

Vehicle type: Front-engine, four-wheel-drive five-passenger performance truck

Price: $57,315, including $1,595 destination fee ($59,795 as tested)

Powerplant: 3.0-liter, twin-turbo V-6

Power: 405 horsepower, 430 pound-feet of torque

Transmission: 10-speed automatic

Performance: 0-60 mph, 5.3 seconds (Car and Driver); towing, 5,510 pounds; payload, 1,411

Weight: 5,372 pounds

Fuel economy: EPA, 16 mpg city/18 highway/17 combined; range, 365 miles

Report card

Highs: Off-road beast, on-road sweetheart

Lows: Styling doesn’t match its personality

Overall: 4 stars

2024 Toyota Tacoma TRD Pro

Vehicle type: Front-engine, four-wheel-drive five-passenger performance truck

Price: $65,395, including $1,595 destination fee ($65,869 as tested)

Powerplant: Hybrid 2.4-liter inline-4 mated to electric motor

Power: 326 horsepower, 465 pound-feet of torque

Transmission: Eight-speed automatic

Performance: 0-60 mph, 6.0 seconds (Motor Trend est.); towing, 6,000 pounds; payload, 1,710 pounds

Weight: 5,000 pounds (est.)

Fuel economy: EPA, 22 mpg city/24 highway/23 combined; range, 437 miles

Report card

Highs: Swiss Army knife of pickup tools; sweet interior

Lows: Not as confident off-roading as Raptor

Overall: 4 stars

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