The New Ford Raptor Dakar Truck Is the Coolest Blue Oval in Years

Remember when every new car debut was cool and exciting? I miss those days. It’s mostly old nameplates coming back as EVs now—even worse, they’re electric crossovers. When I read the press release for Ford’s new Dakar truck I thought, “Cool.” But when I saw the photos of Ford’s new Dakar truck I thought, “Holy … !”

I’ll get to the Ford Raptor T1+ details in just a second, but I’m not done gushing just yet. Regardless of brand, rally trucks have always been pretty awesome, but this is on another level. Audi’s RS Q e-tron from recent years has been, hands down, the coolest Dakar buggy around, but I truly think this eclipses it. It’s big, it’s mean, it looks like it could flatten a mountain if it needed to. Or at the very least, it could just jump over it. With that said, it doesn’t look like a tank or too truck-ish. It looks like a sleek rally car with a massive suspension lift because technically that’s what it is.

The livery is spot-on, too. As much as I sometimes bemoan Red Bull’s involvement in everything from cliff diving to motorsports, there’s something to say about the Red Bull logo making a machine look like a proper race car. The various shades of blue along the fenders and the rest of the body, the 17-inch orange wheels wrapped in 37-inch BF Goodrich tires, and even the font used for the “FORD” messaging along the rear fenders are all one-hunnit.

Lastly, there’s the fact that this Raptor T1+ isn’t based or related to anything else on the road. Ford’s previous Dakar racer resembled the global Ranger truck, but this one certainly doesn’t. Yes, the grille and DRL signature at the front scream “Ford truck” (F-150 or Ranger), but as my colleague Caleb Jacobs points out, this Raptor is its own thing.

The drivetrain powering this rig is just as impressive as its looks, if not more so. Looking to give legendary rally racers Carlos Sainz and Nani Roma the best the Blue Oval has to offer, there’s a Coyote-based 5.0-liter V8 engine powering the T1+. The Fox-designed double-wishbone suspension features three-way adjustable coilovers and four-way adjustable external bypass dampers with remote reservoirs. When it’s all said and done, the whole thing weighs just 4,400 pounds (that’s only 400 pounds more than a BMW M3) and there are nearly 16 inches of ground clearance to make sure it conquers whatever terrain it faces.

The Ford Raptor T1+ is headed to three major races over the next few months: the Baja Hungary in August, the Rallye du Maroc in October, and the grueling Dakar (which now takes place in Saudi Arabia) in January. But before it does that, it’ll partake in the world’s most important race up someone’s driveway, otherwise known as the Goodwood Festival of Speed. There, it’ll hustle up the hill and past the 11th Duke of Richmond’s house on its way to the finish line.

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