How to clean Ford's wildest F-150 Raptor in just four hours

There are few things more satisfying than watching a car go from absolutely caked to gleaming perfection. The darker and thicker the dirt, the deeper the pleasure of the clean. Wax on, wax off.

But how do you clean Ford’s most feral pick-up, the F-150 Raptor R? No ordinary Raptor R, this one's a full-fat, supercharged V8 with over 700 horsepower of American excess fresh from competing in the brutal 1200 Class across 500 miles of desert between Las Vegas and Reno.

This is the latest instalment of Top Gear: Speed Cleans – our new original series in which TG’s very own Tom ‘Wookie’ Ford scours the backroads of America in search of the filthiest cars and the subcultures that make them so grubby. Then, armed with suds, snow foam and industrial-strength Turtle Wax cleaning gear, he attempts to turn each one back into something resembling factory fresh. It’s part therapy, part spectacle, and entirely mesmerising.

For this episode, things escalate quickly as off-road royalty Loren Healey drops Wookie into the world of desert racing. Once he’s done ripping around the desert, the Raptor looks like it’s been through a sandstorm, a rockslide and a barbecue, all at once. Every crevice is filled with dust, every panel streaked with baked-on dirt. Even the cupholders look like an archeological dig site.

So, here’s the challenge: can you really get a 700bhp race truck back to showroom spec in just four hours? Armed with nothing more than compressed air, hoovers, mountains of microfibre towels, litres of shampoo and a pressure washer or three, Wookie gives it a go.

It’s oddly hypnotic watching a race-battered truck transform into something you could sell off the forecourt tomorrow. There’s something almost meditative about it, like watching time-lapse videos of glaciers or thunderstorms – only this one ends with a pristine Raptor gleaming under the Nevada sun.

If you’ve ever wondered what it takes to clean a car properly – really properly – or you simply like the idea of a giant pick-up going through the automotive equivalent of a spa day, this one’s for you. And the best bit? There are more episodes to come, each messier than the last. Enjoy.