Ford, once the Falcon car Company, has all but abandoned passenger cars with only the Mustang left. Ranger is its best seller, and even with the Mustang Mach E and F150 joining the stable soon, Ranger will remain the backbone

To bolster the already-butch reputation of the car that battles Toyota Hilux for top spot, Ford is building extreme racing Ranger Raptor . The off-road racing machine will be sent into battle at the Dakar Rally from 2024.

 

Ford Performance competed in races in far off and exotic racing locations like, Le Mans, Monaco, and Ensenada, as well as places closer to home like the Finke and Bathurst blasts. Ford performance is now eyeing off the grand daddy of races, the one where death and destruction stalk every entrant, the toughest race on the planet, the Dakar Rally. Jus finishing Dakar is considered a win.

 

Ford’s multi-year plan for Dakar includes partners M-Sport and Neil Woolridge Motorsport (NWM) to develop the Ranger, and hand ling logistics support and event management.

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ABOVE: The 2025 Dakar Rally sees  Ford Performance/M-Sport’s all-new, custom Ranger Raptor also designed and built to Dakar’s T1+ class regulations.  

“To lead the charge at one of the ultimate global off-road events – the Dakar Rally – has been a goal of ours,” said Mark Rushbrook, Global Director, Ford Performance Motorsports. “We cannot underestimate the enormity of the challenge ahead of us. We need to finish and learn first with Ranger T1+ and partners like M-Sport and NWM, who bring their expertise to bear. Together, we can do amazing things in the sand dunes of the Arabian Peninsula.”

The 2024 Dakar Rally is in Saudi Arabia between January 5-19, where the bespoke, high performance Ford Ranger competes in the Rally Raid T1+ category.

The joint venture Ford Performance, M-Sport, NWM team developed throughout 2023 so the Ranger T1+ they based on the previous generation global 3.5-litre EcoBoost Ranger. Further test will include races such as Spain’s Baja España Aragón and Morocco’s Rally du Maroc rallies in July and October, before heading over to the Dakar Rally.

“Our first time in Dakar will be a learning adventure that will help inform how we compete in the future,” said Rushbrook. “But as with all racing, we’re not just racing to win, we’re also racing to help build better products for our customers.”

The 2025 Dakar Rally sees  Ford Performance/M-Sport’s all-new, custom Ranger Raptor also designed and built to Dakar’s T1+ class regulations.

“The Dakar Rally is truly among the pinnacle of global off-road racing events,” said Malcolm Wilson, M-Sport managing director. “We’ve achieved great success over the years with Ford in FIA WRC rally racing and can’t wait to apply this same level of focus, energy and effort to competing with Ranger in Dakar.”

M-Sport has seen previous action with the M-Sport Ford Puma HybridRally1 in the FIA World Rally Championship, and are engine builders in the Mustang

GT3 program.

What Ford is hoping to achieve is anyone’s guess, but putting such an important model on the line assumes their confidence brims to write cheques of sufficient cashable importance. A disaster in Dakar wouldn’t bode well so with reputation on the line, 2024 and beyond awaits.

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