DETROIT: Ford Motor Co is looking at developing a supercar for off-road racing as a follow-up to its new US$325,000 (RM1.37mil) Mustang GTD high-performance sports car.
Chief Executive Jim Farley said he envisions the vehicle as a dirt-loving, high-performance machine that could compete in the Dakar Rally desert endurance race in Saudi Arabia.
He teased the possibility during an Aug 17 taping of Bloomberg's Hot Pursuits podcast.
"No one's ever built a supercar for gravel, high-speed sand, dirt," Farley said.
"I'm thinking really deeply about it and usually that turns into something."
Automakers have a history of fielding limited production, pricey trophy models to cast a halo over their broader enterprise.
Ford also is stepping up its racing activities, including a return to the Formula One next year, to burnish its motorsport credentials.
Farley said he is pushing his engineers to come up with a concept for "a 1,000-horsepower, partially electric, totally digitally enabled" supercar that can traverse the most rugged terrain.
Mustang GTD.
Farley sees such a project as a crown jewel atop Ford's lineup of 4-wheel-drive models such as the Bronco sport utility vehicle and the souped up Raptor R variant of the F-150 pickup truck.
"That would be a great direction for our company," Farley said of an off-road supercar.
"These Raptor people are telling us something. They're not stupid. They're really smart people. They spent US$120,000 (RM597,000) on an 800-horsepower pickup truck."
Farley suggested the new off-road speedster would likely be priced north of US$300,000 (RM1.26mil), like the Mustang GTD, and sell in similarly small numbers.
Ford is only building 300 GTD models, Farley said. Last year, the automaker sold nearly 4.5 million automobiles worldwide.
"I want to win Dakar way more than Formula One," said Farley, who races Mustangs on weekends.
"I want us to build a vehicle so that all people could experience what it's like to have the joy of driving no matter what is in front of you."
