Ford raced in the Dakar Rally for the first time this year, in a Raptor-branded race truck called the Raptor T1+ and even finished on the podium with Mattias Ekström and his co-driver Emil Bergkvist placing third. Now, Ford says it might be making an off-road Raptor supercar. Or perhaps an off-road Raptor supertruck. Or perhaps just an extremely capable off-road Raptor.
“We’re in the middle of creating something, so we don’t have all the answers yet, but the question is should Ford make an off-road supercar? Not a version of a car, a standalone supercar,” Ford CEO Jim Faley told Top Gear recently. “People don’t understand about off-road racing how compliant the damping is and that makes it a totally different experience to being in a [Porsche 911] GT2 RS… That’s what we’re trying to answer. What do we do on a utility car? Is there a supercar? That’s what we’re debating now.”
Ford introduced the Raptor branding in 2010, first on the F-150 SVT, later expanding Raptor as an off-road nameplate for the Ranger, a mid-size truck, and the Bronco, a mid-size SUV. The competition includes the Ram 1500 TRX and the Chevy Silverado ZR2, though it sounds like Ford is thinking a bit bigger than that.
Top Gear speculates that a true Raptor supercar or supertruck would make 1,000 horsepower while still having a suspension loose enough for bumps off-road. That truck wouldn’t be what Ford raced at the Dakar Rally—Mark Rushbrook, director of Ford Performance, said the Raptor T1+ is the “ultimate Ford Raptor”—but it would be a slightly bonkers exercise in brand building if nothing else. That’s because, as Farley points out, a race truck, with its compliant damping, is an entirely different proposition than a Porsche 911, even with several hundred or even 1,000 horsepower.
It would be fun, however, which might be mostly what Ford has in mind.
