Ford plans to build a road-going version of its Raptor T1+ Dakar Rally car as it pursues an ambition to become the Porsche of the off-road world.
The T1 is billed as the company’s “ultimate Raptor”, with the purpose-built V8, carbonfibre, steel-tube-chassis racer achieving a double podium and six stage wins at the 2026 version of the world’s toughest off-road race.
Ford CEO Jim Farley, who is visiting Australia this week for the F1 debut of its technical partnership with Red Bull Racing, confirmed it wanted to create a flagship for its Raptor family of off-road performance vehicles.
“I don’t want to go into [details of the T1+ production car] too much, other than to say [we] understand that the invisible line between off-road and on-road supercars is blurring,” Farley told Australian media, including Chasing Cars.
“And with partially electric powertrains and digitally controlled damping and torque vectoring, you can now imagine a digitally enabled super vehicle that on road and off road is equally capable.
“What the [vehicle] silhouette looks like, and all the details, we’ll continue to look at. But if there’s a company in the world that would break the rules and do something like that, I think it should be Ford.
“[Our] F1 [involvement with Red Bull] is ultimate of that promise to compete around the world against the best and brightest in technology. And our commitment is to take that and, I wouldn’t say [apply our learnings to our] road cars, because really the most important performance vehicles at Ford are off-road vehicles.
“There is no Porsche off-road.”
Porsche has dabbled only recently with one off-road sports car, in the form of its 911 Dakar that was also inspired by its long history in the gruelling desert race. Lamborghini created something similar with its Huracan Sterrato.
While Ford looks to expand its family of Raptor vehicles that currently include performance versions of the F-150, Bronco and Ranger – with only the latter sold in Australia – Farley said the future of the Mustang muscle car was secure.
He insisted there would always be a Mustang in Ford’s line-up while he was at the company, adding that a ‘V8 Mustang manual’ would have to be prised out of the company’s “cold dead body”.
There has been speculation, however, that Ford could build a high-riding, Raptor-style version of its famous sports car.
Ford Performance’s off-road focus means disappointing news for fans of the company’s renowned hot-hatches, such as the Fiesta ST and Focus RS.
It has made Ford performance vehicles less attainable for enthusiasts, with the Mustang starting from $72,990 (or $84,990 in V8 form) and the Ranger Raptor costing $90,690 in Australia.
Farley confirmed Ford had no intention to bring back hot-hatches but stressed the company wasn’t planning to ignore enthusiast buyers with smaller budgets.
“We are very committed to affordable performance,” said Farley. “It’s the DNA of the company. It’s a democratisation promise that Henry Ford made, but please expect us not to phone it in or to copy the past. What we get motivated on is doing something new that’s better and different.
“I talk about this a lot [with my team]. I think the way we think about looking forward to bring that affordable enthusiast product to life would be more of a mashup between on-road and off-road.
I think the Fiestas and the Focuses, and all the products that we all grew up with – the Sierra 500s, the Falcon Coupes, all those great cars…
“But we look forward. We don’t want to operate in the past. And in the forward world of automotive technology and enthusiast driving, I don’t think customers need to make such difficult choices between fun off road and fun on road.
“So if we’re going to do something like [a modern Fiesta ST or Focus RS], I would insist the team invent maybe something of a new formula that you haven’t seen yet.”
