Ford turns to off-road racing with Aussie-developed Ranger Raptor

The Australian-developed tough dual-cab ute is going next level as it prepares to take on one of the world’s most gruelling competitions.

Just how tough is the Ford Ranger Raptor? We are about to find out.

The Blue Oval is turning to motorsport to harden the rugged off-road ute loved by Australians.

Ford announced the Australian-developed Ranger Raptor ute will tackle some of the world’s biggest off road races, including the legendary Dakar rally.

“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.

Ford has taken on the Finke desert race with the new Ranger Raptor.

Ford will partner with M-Sport and Neil Woolridge Motorsport to prepare the Ranger Raptor for its biggest challenge. Both partners have extensive experience developing rally cars for Ford.

“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.”

“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 Ranger Raptor recently won its class at the gruelling Australian Finke Desert Race. Engineers are using the racing experience to explore new features and technologies, as well as learning more about the circa-$95,000 model.

Ford also used the opportunity to develop new electronic programs for its “live valve” Fox shock absorber system that is one of the most hi-tech components of the car.

It’s all about using the hi-tech functionality beyond its current capability and enhancing the already impressive off-road nous.

“We’re playing around with the Sport mode setting [on the race truck],” said Justin Capicchiano, Ford Performance and Special Vehicles Manager, Australia.

Ford used the race to further enhance the Ranger raptor off-road ability.

“When you put the shocks [of the race car] into Sport mode it locks the dampers out to full suspension. If you get stuck and you’re on the belly [stuck underneath] it basically locks the dampers in maximum stiffness.”

That means when a bogged car is being towed out or using off-road recovery tracks it can maximise its ride height by reducing suspension compression.

Describing it as “like a recovery mode”, Capicchiano says the shock absorber lockout system is only being used in the race version of the Raptor for now – and that there are currently no plans to put a similar system in production versions.

Ford is now set to take on the gruelling Dakar rally.

“It’s very specific, I don’t know what we’d do with it yet,” he said, adding that it was “definitely not production ready”.

But he said “that’s what you do racing for”, hinting that such learnings could one day influence vehicles in the showroom.

For now, Ford is celebrating the Ranger Raptor’s Finke Desert Race class victory.

The field was hardly at world class, though, there were only two other contenders.

The American racer behind the wheel didn’t want to simply win the class. He also wanted to set a new record, something that came tantalisingly close.

The Ranger Raptor won its class at the 2023 Finke Desert Race.

“Coming into this I thought it was a fast rally race with some little whoops,” said driver Brad Lovell after the race; he had his 16-year-old son Byam sitting alongside him calling notes.

“Seeing it torn up now this is like San Felipe, Baja [race] whoops. Great time, a lot of variation there. It took it, super tough truck, we charged hard at the end there.”

The Raptor may have won its class but fell tantalisingly short of setting a course record for the Production 4WD class, in part because it required a stop for a mechanical repair along the way.

The car was mostly the same as the one you can buy in the showrooms.

The Raptor set a combined time across the two days of 5 hours, 56 minutes, 30.168 seconds versus the 5:51:37.48 result set in 2009 by Geoff Pickering in a Mitsubishi Pajero.

However, the Ford set a class record time for the 226-kilometre return leg from the tiny outback community of Finke to Alice Springs (cars travelled from Alice Springs to Finke on day one). The time of 2:51:18.711 beat the 2009 Production 4WD time on the same leg by more than five minutes.

The Raptor raced was a near-standard car.

Other than race car safety features such as a roll cage, Ford fitted a larger fuel tank, louder exhaust, lightweight plastic rear windows and revised valving for the dampers. There was also a larger undertray to protect mechanicals.

The 3.0-litre twin-turbo V6 was unchanged and the car ran the same advanced suspension computer that comes with the tough truck that you buy for the road.

Originally published as Ford turns to off-road racing with Aussie-developed Ranger Raptor