Disclaimer. Those are not my trucks...but I do know people who have very similar modded trucks and I know that Baja world very well. It honestly comes down to time and money vs no time and not as much money. If you like that off road look, but you don’t have time...and you want a quick “nothing too expensive”...but still legit as hell truck, you get the Raptor and you’re done. If you have time and a bit more money to throw on a toy, you get a 5.0 and build your own Raptor style truck. The sound, just the sound. 5.0 vs not 5.0. If you look at real Trophy Trucks (Baja professional trucks)...how do they sound? Like fucking beasts. Those trucks can also reach 1mil or so to build. Race, break, build again...not as crazy $ as formula 1 or even nascar, but it’s still very very costly. The aftermarket parts are much better than Ford factory parts. Who owns these legit aftermarket shops? The guys who race Baja or supply parts for those 1 million dollar trucks. Other than the Fox shocks on the Raptor, practically everything else is Ford factory on a Raptor. If you pick and choose your parts to “try” and emulate a trophy truck (but with comforts), you build your own starting with a 5.0...because of the sound that it can create (and you want to emulate a trophy truck), you start there. Now, starting with a 6.2 Gen 1 Raptor, and then modding...well you’re a hardcore MFer and you know what you’re doing. Folks also mod Gen 2 Raptors of course, but again, it’s that sound vs no sound and a few other things here and there.