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One of the toughest and most respected off-road races in the world, the Dakar Rally covers a distance greater than the total combined mileage of an F1 season in just two weeks. Over some of the most unforgiving desert terrain in the world, the Dakar attracts steady, hard-nosed competitors who push their vehicles (and themselves) to the max.
For the 2025 rally, Ford entered the T1+ category with purpose-built Birds of Prey piloted by a collection of fierce competitors. The team included notable names such as Carlos Sainz, Sr., a four-time Dakar champion; Rallycross expert Mattias Ekström; King of the Hammers star Mitch Guthrie Jr.; and Nani Roma, a two-time Dakar champion in both motorcycle and car categories.
The 47th edition of the Dakar started on Friday, January 3 with the Prologue stage and ended on Friday, January 17. Together, the Ford teams outfitted vehicles with 5.0-liter V8 engines that weren’t completely stock, but started out as the same V8 available in a new F-150.
Built for “relentless misery”
Launched in 1979 with a grueling route between Paris, France and Dakar, Senegal, the Dakar Rally required through Algeria, Niger, Mali and Upper Volta on its way to the heart of West Africa. As the geopolitical winds shifted, the rally moved from Europe and Africa to South America and resumed in Saudi Arabia in 2020.
Wind drifts through the region daily, filling every crevice with sand as it emancipates itself from a vast carpet of dunes. Based on what I know about competing over 2,000 miles in eight days for the Rebelle Rally, running 5,000 miles in 14 days for the Dakar sounds like a feat for superhumans.
“It’s been two weeks of relentless misery, to be honest,” said Jay Ward, president of Global Ford Performance Communications. He’s just kidding.
To conquer that kind of ground, Ford’s team created the Raptor T1+ with extreme toughness in mind. However, Ward says the Dakar vehicles will incorporate very specific features of Ford’s mass-production Raptor Trucks. Take a look at the front grille and kick plates and you’ll recognize elements from the Raptor line. It’s as if Ford took an F-150 and injected it with some sort of potion that strengthened it and gave it superhero powers.
“We tried to bring some of the characteristics of it [our mass production vehicles] In the Raptor T1+, but ultimately what it has to do is extraordinary,” says Ward. “As good as our street cars are, they can’t even take this.”
To power the rally vehicles, the Ford team looked at all engines across its portfolio, including hybrid setups. Ultimately, Ward says it came down to needing a power plant that would be ultra-reliable and tested in the toughest environments. Ford’s modular coyote V8 engine—the same one that powers the 500-horsepower Mustang Dark Horse—Rose to the top as the clear choice.
“I wouldn’t say the entire program was built around the [Coyote V8] engine, but it became very clear very quickly that we could build the vehicle around it,” Ward says.
Magic carpet seats and dampers
Once the engine was selected, the rest of the Raptor T1+ fell into place. A tubular chassis forms the base; Ward explains that a standard chassis brings inherent compromises to the table. If you’re going to win, you’ll have to start from scratch with a modular tubular frame, he says.
The shocks play an important role in this truck because the challenging course requires a tremendous amount of suspension. Ford opted for Fox shocks, which are also used in its F-150 pickups. The Raptor T1+, however, has two shocks in each corner that will take on anything the Dakar Rally would throw at it, says director of product communications Mike Levine.
Body panels were made from carbon fiber for its lightweight properties, and that meant that if a part was damaged during testing, it had to be tossed and another piece installed. Carbon fiber is expensive, which adds to the overall cost of any build; A conservative estimate for any truck of this caliber might mark the $1 million mark.
Seating is also crucial, as the drivers and co-drivers sit in the cab for at least eight hours a day for two weeks at a time. As tempting as it might have been to use a lightweight sports racing in the Raptor T1+, the build team knew that within half an hour the competitors would be very uncomfortable. Ward even had the unique opportunity to ride with Sainz, SR on a test run in Morocco to see exactly how good the seats turned out.
‘[Carlos Sainz] Launched this thing in the future, and when we got to a gully, I thought, ‘Well, this will be by far the biggest accident of my life. If I survive, I’ll be a happy man. ‘ And we hit this thing and honestly it was like being on a bloody magic carpet. The thing just floated right on the top of it. ‘ At the end of the Dakar Rally, the Ford Raptor T1+ has a podium finish in third place in the ultimate category in its debut year. The Blue Oval will take what it has learned and come back next year with new improvements. More importantly, the data Ford collects from this custom Raptor T1+ will be applied to its passenger cars and trucks, making them better in the long run, too.
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