- Ford had an enormous week on the Detroit Auto Present, unveiling a brand new high-performance Mustang and Bronco, and previewing the season forward for a number of racing-related initiatives.
- Ford’s once-disparate motorsports operations are actually underneath one roof, dubbed Ford Racing, with extra manufacturing facility involvement than ever.
- In an interview with Motor1, Ford CEO Jim Farley defined the enterprise case for racing—together with changing into ‘the Porsche of off-road.’
There’s an outdated saying within the motorsports world: “One of the best ways to make a small fortune in racing is to start out with a big one.”
That is true for each small privateer groups and big international automakers. Even when the eagerness for racing is what will get lots of people within the auto trade away from bed each morning, the monetary returns on motorsports investments are sometimes laborious to quantify past obscure good points in “model consciousness.”
However at Ford Racing’s large debut on the Detroit Auto Present this week, Ford’s CEO Jim Farley made clear that its newest strikes purpose a lot larger than being a branding train.
“Ford Racing cannot be a advertising and marketing division anymore,” Farley advised Motor1 in an interview on Thursday. “Our thought for Ford Racing is that they really engineer highway autos. They will engineer our next-generation supercars, the brand new Mustang SC.”
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Supply: Ford
Whereas the 2026 Detroit Auto Present was a sleepier affair than it has been in a long time previous, Ford used the occasion as a type of coming-out celebration for its largest performance-focused initiatives in 2026 and past. That included the debut of the brand new, supercharged Ford Mustang Darkish Horse SC, the performance-focused Ford Bronco RTR, its new technical partnership with Crimson Bull Racing for System 1, the newest on its in-house WEC effort, and extra.
However Farley, himself an avid racer who has competed each on and off the pavement, mentioned the final word objective for Ford is to make its shopper vehicles higher—and that goes deeper than sticker and badge packages.
“Ford Racing used to only go racing,” Farley mentioned. “They by no means had the switch operate again into the corporate like Porsche did or Ferrari did with their racing effort. It is a large change for Ford.”
Jim Farley, CEO of Ford, Mark Rushbrook, Ford and Crimson Bull Racing Crew Principal Christian Horner
The 2 European motorsports giants got here up regularly in our dialog. Farley reiterated that he desires Ford to be seen as “the Porsche of off-road,” synonymous with competing and profitable when the pavement ends. “Not like Jeep, with its navy [heritage], or the Defender for industrial use in Africa, our genuine off-road credibility comes from racing,” Farley mentioned. “The opposite instance is the Vary Rover. We actually see off-road work use as one other technique to construct credibility.”
Vehicles and SUVs are already large enterprise for Ford—arguably, the enterprise. However even because the maker of America’s best-selling car, the F-150, the competitors is heating up.
‘Our thought for Ford Racing is that they really engineer highway autos. They will engineer our next-generation supercars.’
The American auto trade, and more and more the European one, has tilted closely towards SUVs and vehicles in recent times. Many automakers have posted robust gross sales good points by emphasizing bigger, extra off-road-focused SUVs, with specialised trims and possibility packages rising as main revenue drivers.
Consider it this manner: if you happen to’re already shopping for a Mercedes G-Class or a Land Rover Defender, why not pull the set off on essentially the most rugged, specialised, trail-ready one you will get? In keeping with one evaluation, your complete off-road car market is predicted to be a $21 billion enterprise by 2033.
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Supply: Ford
Ford is seeing the advantages of that shift proper now. In keeping with the automaker’s fourth-quarter earnings report, off-road efficiency trims—the Raptor, Tremor, Timberline, FX4, and so forth—accounted for practically 21 p.c of US gross sales final yr. Gross sales of off-road efficiency trims rose practically 18 p.c final yr, totaling over 450,000 autos offered.
In different phrases, individuals purchase these things. And Farley mentioned he sees Ford—which has moved away from sedans and smaller autos in america to primarily give attention to SUVs and vehicles—doubling down on racing to make these autos stand out. And the playbook has labored earlier than, Farley mentioned.
“The [F-150] Raptor itself was impressed by Baja racing,” he mentioned. “I funded that 15 years in the past out of my advertising and marketing division, to go race in Baja after which flip that right into a manufacturing car.” Right this moment, it is laborious to think about Ford’s efficiency lineup with out the high-performance Raptor truck, which has since turn into a therapy for the Bronco SUV and the smaller Ranger.
That gross sales success may give Ford some wanted aid from the regulatory whiplash and altering shopper tastes which have hit reset on your complete American auto trade.
Farley reiterated that he desires Ford to be seen as ‘the Porsche of off-road.’
In December, Ford introduced $19.5 billion in losses to retool its complete electrical car program, together with cancelling the groundbreaking F-150 Lightning amid slower gross sales and persistent unprofitability. Although the Michigan-based automaker builds practically all of its US fashions domestically, it nonetheless incurred about $1 billion in new tariff prices. And now not underneath the gun to impress shortly now that the Trump administration dialed again gasoline economic system guidelines, Ford has some freedom to lean extra on worthwhile gas-powered autos—no less than, for now.
Farley himself has warned of the risks of getting to compete with China’s automakers within the EV area, each globally and probably at dwelling. Lengthy-term, Ford is hanging its electrical hopes on the upcoming Common EV Platform, beginning with a $30,000 truck meant to compete with China’s finest on manufacturing prices and earnings.
For now, making higher vehicles by racing efforts may give Ford the monetary edge it wants. That goes past off-road racing as effectively, he mentioned. “Racing, grassroots racing, promoting race vehicles like Porsche has finished for a very long time—that is large enterprise,” Farley mentioned.
“Now we have a [Mustang] GT4 and GT3 that we truly construct for patrons. We construct race vehicles for our prospects. After I go to the racetrack now, at Sebring or Daytona or Spa or Le Mans, I am assembly with our prospects who purchase our race vehicles. They purchase crash components, they usually purchase engines, they purchase all types of issues. And that is a separate enterprise as effectively,” he mentioned.
However much more essential, he mentioned, is making higher and higher highway vehicles, just like the Mustang GTD. “An important a part of this complete factor is translating, on the off-road facet and the on-road facet, the racing know-how and placing it into our core product—placing it into our ‘hero merchandise’.”
