The Ford Ranger is to take on its arch rival, Toyota’s Hilux, in the Dakar Rally, one of the toughest off-road races in the world.
The blue oval has announced it will make its debut in the famed off-road race in 2024 to kick off a multiyear programme. Ford has teamed up with longtime partners M-Sport and SA-based Neil Woolridge Motorsport (NWM) to tackle the annual event.
It will field a purpose-built high-performance Ford Ranger bakkie in the Rally Raid T1+ category of next year’s race, which takes place in Saudi Arabia from January 5-19. Based on the previous generation global Ranger, it will be powered by a 3.5l EcoBoost engine.
For the 2025 Dakar Rally, the team is developing an all-new custom-built Ranger Raptor designed and built to Dakar’s T1+ class regulations.
“Ford Performance has raced and won from Le Mans to Monaco, Daytona to Bathurst and Finke to Ensenada. But it has yet to take on one of the toughest races on the planet — the iconic Dakar Rally,” said Mark Rushbrook, global director, Ford Performance Motorsports.
“The first step in the multiyear plan is to finish and learn first with Ranger T1+. We cannot underestimate the enormity of the challenge ahead of us.”
Test races are expected to include Spain’s Baja España Aragón and Morocco’s Rally du Maroc in July and October, respectively, before tackling the Dakar Rally in 2024.
“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 Dakar Rally is among the pinnacle of global off-road racing events,” said Malcolm Wilson, M-Sport MD. “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.”
UK-based M-Sport is a leading developer and campaigner of the M-Sport Ford Puma HybridRally1 in the FIA World Rally Championship, as well as engine builder for the Mustang GT3 programme. NWM has played a pivotal role since the infancy of the Rally-Raid Ranger, as the team developed and built units at its facility in Pietermaritzburg, KwaZulu-Natal, specified to compete in full Dakar T1+ regulations in the SA Rally-Raid Championship and around the world.
The Ranger’s Dakar Rally entry will mirror the sales battle taking place in SA between the Ford Ranger and Toyota Hilux, the country’s two best-selling bakkies. The SA-built Gazoo Racing Hilux has contested the Dakar for the past several years and won the last two.
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