{"id":35565,"date":"2026-01-18T17:22:10","date_gmt":"2026-01-18T21:22:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/henrypayne.com\/?p=35565"},"modified":"2026-01-18T17:22:10","modified_gmt":"2026-01-18T21:22:10","slug":"ford-raptor-t1-ultimate-racer-an-off-road-gt40-to-win-dakar","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/henrypayne.com\/index.php\/2026\/01\/ford-raptor-t1-ultimate-racer-an-off-road-gt40-to-win-dakar","title":{"rendered":"Ford Raptor T1 Ultimate racer: An off-road GT40 to win Dakar"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"gnt_ar_b_p\"><em>Riyadh, Saudi Arabia<\/em>\u00a0\u2014 The desert-focused, 2026 Ford Raptor T1 Ultimate Dakar Rally car and the track-focused 1966 Ford GT40 Le Mans racer couldn\u2019t be more different. The Raptor has half the top speed of the 200 mph-plus GT40, looks like a painted cockroach next to the sleek sports car, and bounces around on 37-inch all-terrain tires relative to the stiff GT40 whose roofline is only 40 inches tall.<\/p>\n<p class=\"gnt_ar_b_p\">But the V8-powered monsters\u2019 mission is the same: establish the Dearborn automaker as the premier motorsports company on the planet.<\/p>\n<p class=\"gnt_ar_b_p\">In 1966, that meant beating Ferrari at the 24 Hours of Le Mans \u2014 the world\u2019s premier sports car race \u2014 with the GT40. Sixty years later, the target is Toyota in a competition for bragging rights in the marathon 14-day Dakar Rally across Saudi Arabia desert. But if Ford\u2019s Le Mans win was wrapped in marketing braggadocio, the Raptor T1 is part of a more sophisticated business model for the early 21st century.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"\" src=\"https:\/\/www.detroitnews.com\/gcdn\/authoring\/authoring-images\/2026\/01\/12\/PDTN\/88144581007-ford-t-1-designer.jpg?width=660&amp;height=372&amp;fit=crop&amp;format=pjpg&amp;auto=webp\" alt=\"Riyadh, Saudi Arabia - Ford Raptor T1 designer Sam Purvis of M-Sport at Dakar Rally.\" width=\"541\" height=\"305\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Riyadh, Saudi Arabia &#8211; Ford Raptor T1 designer Sam Purvis of M-Sport at Dakar Rally.<\/p>\n<p>Henry Payne, The Detroit News<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.detroitnews.com\/story\/business\/autos\/2026\/01\/16\/ford-raptor-t1-ultimate-racer-an-off-road-gt40-to-win-dakar\/88143196007\/\">Read the full article here<\/a><\/p>\n<div class=\"gnt_em_img_ccw gnt_em_img_ccw__cap gnt_em_img_ccw__crd\" data-c-caption=\"Riyadh, Saudi Arabia - Ford Raptor T1 designer Sam Purvis of M-Sport at Dakar Rally.\" data-c-credit=\"Henry Payne, The Detroit News\"><\/div>\n<p class=\"gnt_ar_b_p\">\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Riyadh, Saudi Arabia\u00a0\u2014 The desert-focused, 2026 Ford Raptor T1 Ultimate Dakar Rally car and the track-focused 1966 Ford GT40 Le Mans racer couldn\u2019t be more different. The Raptor has half the top speed of the 200 mph-plus GT40, looks like a painted cockroach next to the sleek sports car, and bounces around on 37-inch all-terrain [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/henrypayne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35565"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/henrypayne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/henrypayne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/henrypayne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/henrypayne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=35565"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/henrypayne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35565\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":35566,"href":"https:\/\/henrypayne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35565\/revisions\/35566"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/henrypayne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=35565"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/henrypayne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=35565"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/henrypayne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=35565"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}