The Ford Raptor Dakar Race Truck Has A Feature Every Ford Pickup Should Have
Ford is doing Dakar.
The automaker has revealed the first teaser images of the truck it will enter in the 2025 Dakar Rally in Saudi Arabia.
Ford will be seeking its first victory in the two-week-long race.
Veteran rally drivers Carlos Sainz Sr. and Nani Roma are the first of four drivers announced for the multi-vehicle effort, which is a collaboration with the M-Sport racing team.
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The the truck is branded simply as the Raptor and isn’t directly based on the F-150, Bronco or Ranger that use the name in production form.
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Technical details have not been released, but Ford and racing outfit M Sport ran the T1+ Ranger truck last year, which used a turbocharged 3.5-liter V6.
“The scale of our ambitions in off-road racing are unparalleled in Ford’s recent history and nothing is more clear in that ambition than our challenge to take the Ford Raptor to the legendary Dakar rally,” Mark Rushbrook, global director, Ford Performance Motorsport, said in a press release.
“Taking on such an enormous challenge requires the best engineers, designers, team members, navigators and drivers, and in Nani Roma and Carlos Sainz Sr, we have two of the most experienced and successful drivers in Dakar history. The Ford Raptor is already showing promising signs in testing and having two of the best drivers in the world with us for the ride gives us confidence for the continued development of the truck.”
Glimpses of the new truck show that it is low, wide and has a feature that might be good for Ford’s production pickups. The truck sports an aerodynamic fastback design that should improve its speed and efficiency.
It’s somewhat similar to the Tesla Cybertruck’s lockable “vault” and there actually is a way to get something like it for the F-150.
Michigan Vehicle Solutions sells a fastback-style bedcover for the F-150 called the Aero X for $7,500 that was inspired by the 1969 Mustang Mach 1.
Unfortunately, according to the results of a MotorTrend test of the cover, the current design doesn’t start improving efficiency over a standard tonneau until speeds reach 80 mph, which sounds just fine for off-road racing.