2009 was not a great year for the auto industry. In fact, much of the world was still gripped by a depressing recession, and auto sales were in the dumper. It was not exactly the best year to launch an expensive, purpose-built off-road vehicle, right? Yet the Ford F-150 SVT Raptor proved just as resilient as engineers planned, and sales have steadily grown, even beyond Ford’s own expectations.

In fact, Ford has more than doubled Raptor production since its 2009 launch, a testament to a growing economy and the excellence of SVT’s off-road vehicle. Ford has single-handedly launched a new truck segment, which still has other automakers scrambling to play catch up with the Raptor.

The Raptor has set sales records in eight of the past 10 months, and there is just a 15-day supply of Raptors on dealer lots despite Ford cranking out five of the off-road trucks per hour. The industry-average for most vehicles is a 60-day supply, meaning that if Ford stopped building Raptors today, they would be sold out in just more than two weeks.

Overall sales of the Raptor is up 14 percent this year, helped by an overall F-series sales increase, which are up more than 22 percent, compared to August 2012. In all of 2012 Ford sold about 13,000 Raptors, and expects to sell even more in 2013, and it is rare for a vehicle like the Raptor in its fourth year of production to keep selling more and more. The Raptor just won’t quit, helping the chances of an even-better sequel. Forget the Lightning, and give us more Raptor!