Earlier this year, Ford CEO Jim Farley confidently announced that he wanted the Blue Oval brand to be the go-to automaker for anything off-road. In an age where European supercar brands have tiptoed off-road with vehicles like the Porsche 911 Dakar and Lamborghini Huracán Sterrato, it makes sense that an off-road-obsessed Ford would go chasing after them. After all, the company does have a history of making supercars with a few successful generations of the iconic Ford GT.
Farley has hinted that such an off-road supercar model could already be fairly far in development, and now he’s brought up the prospect again in a new podcast with a few more details.
Speaking to Bloomberg on August 17, Farley made the claim that even those previous off-road-oriented supercars didn’t go far enough.
“No one’s ever built a supercar for gravel, high-speed sand, dirt. I’m thinking really deeply about it and usually that turns into something.”
-Jim Farley, Ford CEO
The goal would ultimately have a version of the car that ties into the actual Dakar Rally race that takes place in Saudi Arabia, the executive also mentioned. The company is already moving into Formula 1 as an engine supplier, but Farley wants more: “I want to win Dakar way more than Formula 1. I want us to build a vehicle so that all people could experience what it’s like to have the joy of driving no matter what is in front of you.”
On that note of “all people” having this amazing off-road supercar experience, there is also the question of price. Bloomberg indicates the new off-road Ford supercar would be something bespoke rather than engineered from a current model, similar to previous Ford GT supercar development programs. The report suggests the new model would likely cost more than $300,000, or more than the current Ford Mustang GTD. That’s decidedly not a vehicle for “all people” to afford.
Similar to the rare Mustang GTD and previous Ford GT production runs, Ford would likely keep units fairly limited. There are supposedly only going to be a few hundred GTD models built, and Ford barely built 1,000 copies of the latest GT supercar.
Farley also revealed that the Ford Raptor team of engineers is working on the project.
“These Raptor people are telling us something. They’re not stupid. They’re really smart people. They spent $120,000 on an 800-horsepower pickup truck,” said Farley.
The exec was also said to have described his desired outcome to the engineers as “a 1000-horsepower, partially electric, totally digitally enabled” supercar capable of tackling rugged terrain. It could even be branded as a Raptor model, alongside the F-150 Raptor, Bronco Raptor, and Ranger Raptor. Would it be the Raptor GT? Who knows. Farley described the project as “a great direction for our company.”
Past rumors indicated there could possibly be a four-door Mustang model also in the works, that was said to have been previewed to Ford dealers alongside a possible Mustang Raptor model, though we haven’t much about either since then, and nothing official has been confirmed. These latest comments suggest a Raptor supercar and a Mustang Raptor would not necessarily have to be the same thing, but we wonder if they could coexist in a world where new cars are more expensive than ever. For now, the brand is learning from its Raptor T1 Dakar program this year, where it made the podium with a third-place finish.
Source: Bloomberg
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