The automotive future may be all about software-defined vehicles, self-driving cars, and EVs, but Ford has been showing some refreshing, throwback attitudes toward good old-fashioned motorsports. The latest “win on Sunday, sell on Monday” project was tipped by CEO Jim Farley, who thinks the Blue Oval should build a 1,000-horsepower beast and go after victory at the Dakar Rally in Saudi Arabia. “I’m thinking really deeply about it and usually that turns into something,” Farley said on Bloomberg Hot Pursuit podcast, as reported by Automotive News. He had already dropped some hints about the idea back in February.
Ford ran the purpose-built Raptor T1+ at the 2025 Rally in January and notched a third-place finish; previously, the company had entered Ranger T1+ vehicles. The Raptors T1+s, with Coyote V8s under the hood, were raced in a collaboration between Ford Performance and UK-based M-Sport, a partnership that dates back to the 1990s. From the sounds of it, Farley thinks that adding some serious oomph to the powertrain could take Ford from position three to position one at Dakar. He’s also thinking about the commercial impact, telling Bloomberg that customers of Ford’s Raptor R high-performance truck have captured his attention. “They spent $120,000 on an 800-horsepower pickup,” he said.
Very expensive and not very many going on sale
Automotive News reported that the Dakar-slayer, like the Mustang GTD, would sticker above $300,000. It would also be produced in a severely limited run (Farley’s comments suggest that it wouldn’t be a racing-only platform, like the Raptor T1+). In this respect, it would be the rallying version of the Ford GT supercar that the company deployed to win its class at the 2016 24 Hours of Le Mans, remaking history 50 years after defeating Ferrari in a 1-2-3 sweep in 1966. That car cost more than $450,000 and only 1,350 were homologated for sale to the public. And there is precedent for an off-road supercar: the Lamborghini Huracan Sterrato. Also the Porsche 911 Dakar.
Farley’s version would have a hybrid gas-electric powertrain and offer some sort of “digitally enabled” technological capability, which he didn’t specifically define. Interestingly, he said that he was far more interested in Ford winning Dakar than making waves in Formula 1, where the company has re-entered the conversation at the pinnacle of global motorsports via a collaboration with Red Bull to be an engine supplier.
Ford’s CEO can’t help himself
Farley loves racing and is an active participant, so setting his sights on a Dakar trophy makes perfect sense. He believes that motorsport continues to be a great way to both vindicate Ford’s engineering chops and add to the company’s competitive aura (I wrote a book about Ford’s 2016 Le Mans campaign and when I first interviewed Farley when he became CEO in 2020, it was the first thing he wanted to talk about). With Raptor and Bronco, Ford has plenty of off-roading credibility, and its Dakar results indicate that the company wants to forever stamp its name in the Saudi desert with the win that has thus far been elusive.
Is Farley’s timing right, however, given that the main plotline in the car business for past decades has been software plus electrification? He’s quite possibly on to something, as the EV market is struggling, especially in the U.S., and Ford’s core business isn’t exactly weak when it comes to combustion. I think he’s sensing a shift in the wind and sees a way to deliver another global motorsports achievement for Ford that might actually support sales of some of the Blue Oval’s bigger-ticket offerings. Motorsports prowess is also an area where legacy automakers have a century’s worth of laps on China’s upstart brands, and it never hurts to lean into racing wins when new competitors arrive on the scene.
