The Ford Mustang is a famous car that many people love because it looks cool and goes really fast. It's been around for a long time and is often talked about when people discuss sports cars or racing.
EcoBoost is a type of engine made by Ford that uses a turbocharger to help it use less gas while still being powerful. It's meant to be more efficient than regular engines.
The Ford Bullitt is a special version of the Mustang that celebrates a famous movie from the 1960s. It's known for being fast and having a cool look, making it popular among car lovers.
The Shelby Cobra is a classic sports car from the 1960s that is famous for being fast and lightweight. It's a favorite among car collectors and racing fans because of its unique design and performance.
DCT is a type of car transmission that helps the car change gears quickly and smoothly. It uses two clutches to make the process faster than regular automatic transmissions.
The Ford Mustang GT500 is a very powerful version of the Ford Mustang. It has a supercharged engine, which means it can go really fast and is great for racing.
In rear wheel drive cars, the back wheels get the power from the engine. This can make the car handle better but can also make it harder to drive in slippery conditions because the back wheels can lose grip.
The Fiat 500 is a tiny car that is great for driving around the city. It's cute and easy to park, making it a popular choice for people who live in crowded areas.
Rear drive means the back wheels of the car get the power from the engine. This can make cars handle differently, especially when they have a lot of power.
The Raptor is a special version of the Ford F-150 truck that is built for off-road driving. It has a strong engine and is designed to handle rough trails.
Zero to sixty is a way to measure how fast a car can go from a complete stop to 60 miles per hour. It's often used to show how powerful and quick a car is.
The Ford F-150 is a very popular truck that people use for work and play. It's strong and can carry a lot of stuff, which is why many people choose it for their daily needs.
The Dodge Spirit is a regular car that was made in the late 80s and 90s. It's known for being a good choice for families because it's affordable and practical.
Gen 1 Raptor is the first version of a special off-road truck made by Ford. It's built to handle tough terrains and is known for its powerful performance.
The Renault Latitude is a comfortable car that is bigger inside, making it nice for long drives. It's not very common, but it's made for people who want a smooth ride.
Overlanding is a type of travel where people use their vehicles to go to faraway places, often camping along the way. It's about the adventure of the trip, not just getting to a destination.
SoCal Raptors are fans of the Ford Raptor truck, especially in Southern California. They often modify their trucks for better off-road performance and enjoy outdoor activities.
The Ford Explorer ST is a sporty SUV that has a strong engine and is fun to drive. It's a good choice for families who want something that can also be exciting.
The Ford Raptor Ranger is a special version of a pickup truck made for off-roading. It's built to handle rough trails and is really fun to drive in the dirt.
The Porsche 911 is a fancy sports car that many people admire for its speed and style. It's known for being really fun to drive and is often seen as one of the best cars in its class.
The BMW M5 is a sporty version of a regular BMW car that is made to go really fast and feel luxurious. It's popular with people who love driving and want a car that combines comfort with speed.
The Toyota Land Cruiser is a tough SUV that can go anywhere, even on rough roads. It's known for being very reliable and is great for people who like to go on adventures.
The Lamborghini Huracan is a super fancy sports car that is really fast and looks amazing. It's a dream car for many people because of its speed and style.
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Hello, welcome to the Edmunds podcast on that, the moderator, DeAndrea, here with Alistair
Weaver.
We have a guest on the show.
We have Carl Widman, Carl's from Ford.
Welcome, Carl.
Thank you so much for joining us.
Quickly tell us what it is that you do there.
What is your title now?
I'm Ford Racing Production Vehicle Chief Engineer.
What does that mean?
That means anything that's street legal.
I'm in charge of making sure the insurance gets done on it and it delivers on time to
what the enthusiast has.
Raptors, when we did GT 500, that type of vehicle, GTD, just working through all that
with a bunch of enthusiasts who really make vehicles for enthusiasts.
Carl, I think you've got one of those jobs that everybody loves.
We should start with Ford Racing.
This is the company formerly known as SVT, then it became Ford Performance and it's
Ford Racing.
Ford Racing now encompasses all of the stuff that happens on track, but it's also Ford's
Performance Vehicle.
I just want to get that straight at the start because it's hard to keep up sometimes.
Absolutely.
So, we now umbrella the whole longer organization, the Mark Rush Group, and that covers what
would have been referred to as competition racing across all the spectrum, and then
the production vehicle space.
Really the enthusiast things we do with the marketing side of engagement and the experiences
that they get with going to the Raptor Salt School for driving, or the schools with Dark
Horses Go or North Carolina to really get a chance to learn how to drive a vehicle.
So, it's kind of that whole circle of engagement, to vehicle, to engage after the sale.
Fantastic.
Prior to the Ford Racing side of things, you were on the Mustang team, so maybe we'll
start there.
I'm sure we have some Mustang questions we could go over as well.
But what was your role on the Mustang team?
So, I'm on the Mustang team as chief engineer for Mustang.
So, we finished off the launch of the 2015 for Global, right?
So, we led the Global launch when I was there.
And then, that was super exciting because you really understand your vehicle when you
put it against the prison for the first time, you go to Europe in a long time, and really
understand it better after you've met every country's media person who has their own Mustang
store, even though you have sold a Mustang in that region.
So, coming out of that, it was very clear that the brand Bullseye was the bullet, and
that general Steve McQueen experience, even every time we went and launched, because we
launched from China, and as we ran around the globe, I spent a lot of time in Australia
for the launch.
It was the same general thing.
So, it was also kind of fun as we came back around to the 50th anniversary to launch the
bullet.
We did a good buzz vehicle, the Hypo, the Hyper Formance 2.3 EcoBoost, so at least see
those around with the track pack system on them, the People Rally, the Mach 1 behind
you is a big passion project.
We came back from Australia, the Australians wanted an automatic track car, and that was
a big illness for the Mach 1 that is both a manual and automatic to be both track capable
for what they were looking for.
So, it was kind of fun in that enthusiasm as a global group to really come up with what
we would call special vehicles that ran on different groups that would come to it with
their experience, and it's always great going to car shows and talking to people and understanding
how they get the enjoyment out of them and just their road trips and what they talk about.
I think the guy I saw, Carlisle, had spent his Mach 1 was going to track.
His whole back window had decals in orange to manage the stripes of all the different
tracks he'd been through, and there's like a little hole left, you could look at the
back.
It was just that feeling or the honour or the privilege to put a vehicle out there and
then someone embrace it and really have all those experiences with it and go out there
and use it.
How do you feel in Europe when you arrive and it's 10 bucks a gallon or something?
I remember when they launched the V8 Mustang in Europe, I was like, has anybody worked
out that this thing is going to cost you like 100 bucks to go to the supermarket just in
gas?
I remember he lives in Texas or Detroit, it's like a whole different world.
So, I talked to a guy from, I mean, he was in Norway or Sweden or something, and I asked
him that question.
He said he was arriving by the point today.
Yeah, that's not a bad word.
So, you know, I was thinking about the performance variance of Mustang over the last decade or
even longer.
We've had Bullitt, the Mach 1, Bullitt, Mach 1, Boss 302, several variants of GT500 when
that license name was available.
How have you seen those progress over the years?
Now, as consumers, obviously, we're pushing it a little more, even something like Boss
302.
It's like, oh, we've got the side cutouts now for the change, the sound of it, and we're
just doing different things to it, but pushing the limit each time.
But what I found is it went from a slight upgrade, like we got a little bit more power
or we've got some aesthetic differences to it, to really leaning into the performance
side of things.
Like now it's got to handle better, it's really got to grip better, and it's just like, where
it's gone from, let's say, 93, you know, from the Cobra back then to now, has been amazing,
right, from 5-speed T5 in the 93 Mustang to DCT transmissions because the engines are
so powerful and the cars are so quick.
Quite an evolution.
Yeah, if you look at it, so some of them are easier than others, but all of them have
a character that had to come through it.
I think the 500, when we did that one, that was super difficult to execute the dream,
a drag strip capable vehicle, but something that can put all that power down on a race
track and, you know, at Virginia in a national speedway, it can run head-to-head with a 4GT.
Totally different experience than you use a lot of more track with a GT 500 to make
that happen, but the challenge was with that, to get that full power of the supercharger
down to the ground consistently.
And the DCT really was a from scratch creation and calibration to get that power through
the system and down, and then the torsion jet bias and just that constant redesign, redesigned
the cooling system to run with that capability and the brake system.
If you've ever seen it, I think one of the funniest things is the brake rotor against
the original GT 500 wheel.
They're the same size, right?
I mean, it's just amazing the stopping power that that vehicle had to put down to match
that capability to really have all that power around the track, and I've met enough people
who that's what they do with the vehicle, and I always get a kick out of the people who
have modified it to be, you know, the dream drag strip vehicle that they wanted, right?
And so the modifications people do to those, to have their Mustang fantasy is always amazing
to me, and I enjoy Carlisle to spend time just talking with people, what they've done
with the vehicle.
Carl, Edmunds knows this well because we talk about it a lot.
We actually bought a GT 500.
We have a policy of buying up cars and we then live with them, and typically the plan is
that we live with them for a year and 20,000 miles, and we bought the GT 500, I think at
the beginning of the pandemic, or pretty much the beginning of the pandemic, and at the
time there's lots of YouTube channels doing all this drag racing, and we started to, we
tried it a little bit, and the GT 500 was always losing, partly because it just, you
know, the rear wheel drive ultimately, you're always traction limited.
So we realized that this wasn't really showing off the vehicle in its best light, so we came
up with this Edmunds UDRAX concept where you had a straight, a brake, a corner, and then
an acceleration back to the finish line, and this was really inspired by the GT 500 because
what we liked about that vehicle was it wasn't, to Matt's point, a sort of traditional muscle
car, this was something that could actually stop and turn, and we wanted a mechanism to
actually show off its capability.
So we started doing all these Edmunds UDRAX, we built a whole series off the back of it,
now in our 10th series, and it's been seen millions and millions of times, and this was
actually the inspiration, and we kept this car for four years.
Every time we decided we really ought to sell it, then we came up with a new excuse to
hang onto it, and the funny thing is, I don't think we lost any money in the end.
We ran it for four years, we did 30,000 miles, so I mean, in terms of my justification to
the broader business was, well, I think we actually made money after four years and 30,000
miles, so it was a great car, and then we sold out, and now we have a Mustang dark horse,
which we just supercharged, which we're trying to get back to that GT 500, but you haven't
quite done it yet.
Yeah, it's tremendous amount of fun.
I'll assume, you guys are familiar with the, you know, the health circuit out, and we'll
go out and drive, you know, we're forced to drive the GTD to make sure it's all ready
for production and that type of stuff, and then you'll see 500 still run in, second owners
and stuff that they'll run out there in the morning before it gets crowded, but it's always
a great vehicle on any type of horse to really enjoy tremendous power all the time.
Yeah, it was great.
It's just the fuel range, that was it.
Did you ever, when you were developing that car, did you ever try and fit a larger fuel
tank because it was, it did feel like you were filling up every hour?
Yes, track bills for fuel are kind of astounding credit card bills we give it, I think, but
no, the fuel tank is kind of trapped in there between the axle and the back of the front
floor.
Yeah, actually, we've got that.
If you're watching on YouTube, the picture that Max just showing us, it's kind of cool
to burn through a tank of gas in only 30 minutes, so there you go, shed experience.
Yeah, there you go, and not feel bad about it any bit, because if you're burning through
that much fuel that quickly, you're having the best time ever in the GT 500.
We've had some amazing opportunities to drive the car and participate in the launch
experience as well in Vegas when this car came out on the road course and the drag
strap and just driving it up in the mountains and doing the whole thing with the car.
And like Alistair said, they love that car so much, they held onto it for way longer
than what's typical for the Edmunds fleet and for good reason.
But on that car...
Sorry, sorry, go ahead.
No, I just didn't want to go.
I know you don't like talking about future products and everything else, but we've seen
plenty of pictures of new GT 500s running around and reported on Edmunds and everything else.
Is there anything at all you can tell us about that car or is that all still top secret?
No, I'm checking into those photos to try to figure out what it might be.
Right, so you're just as curious as we are.
I know for sure, I mean, we should see another performance, another sort of
something under GTD and slots in between Dark Horse and GTD.
Maybe it's not a GT 500, maybe it's something else we've got, because I was going through all
the different naming conventions, we did Bullet, we did Buster of 2, we did Mach 1,
and then we got to go, do we go back to Bullet?
Like is there something else in there now that we can bring in?
And of course, Dark Horse being new as well.
Something came up on Dark Horse, I had a quick question that I want to move over to
some Raptor stuff as well.
But the vehicle that Edmunds has that they supercharge is a Dark Horse with an automatic.
It's great, especially in LA, easy to drive.
But no launch control on the automatic versions of the car.
But on the manual, of course, and the DCT, the GT 500, yes.
What's the reasoning behind that?
No launch control on the automatic.
And one hand it seems like it would be easy, but the other hand is like, I don't know,
if it's like a durability thing, it's a heat build up.
I don't know, I don't know.
I was gone by that time from the chief engineer role a lot of times, I'm not sure.
Yeah, okay.
It is just before, I know we're going to talk about Raptor, but I'm fascinated by the GT5.
I got two questions, and then we can talk Raptors all day.
So that car, there are two things that really stand out about that car.
Obviously, you've got a lot of power to start with, and then if you buy the supercharged
part, you've got even more power.
As even on a car like the Mustang, which is supposed to be a muscle car, you know,
are we now moving away from just more and more power?
I mean, we test so many EVs at Edmunds, and of course, they're incredibly fast and a straight
line. We've got GT 500, 700, 760 horsepower.
Is there a world in which you say, I mean, we're not going to see, I mean, GTD's got
like 800, you're not going to see a GT 500 or equivalent with 1000 horsepower.
So how do you square that circle?
Because things have just, the horsepower war has just got crazy in recent years.
Have you got a different way into the argument?
Yeah, I think you're always trying to balance the experience or the emotion of the event.
But Raptors, for us, you get that experience from something like 400 horsepower or 720.
In the Mustang space, I think when you talk about a supercharged vehicle, you're already
playing a game of grip. There's more power on a GT 500 than you can get down in all conditions
in the two tires you have. Because you look at what we did on the GTD, you'll see it's
God's in essence. It's a wide-body kit. You get a bigger tire, bigger cup two down
to really transfer that for horsepower. And again, with a transactional system,
we'll weight on the tire in the rear and then a wing that is a stupid amount of doubt before
it's right. And that's really what you're playing is grip on the track is being around.
So I think there's a limitation in the rear drive and a big tire to really get around the track
much faster with much more horsepower because you're just going to break free on the rear
tractor capability. And so I think that's always that balancing act. And then people will still,
they love a 350 more than a 500, right? Because you get just, it's just perfectly balanced, right?
You don't need huge amounts of downforce with that vehicle, with that amount of power,
and you wrap it up, and it's just miles all the time. Yes, it's slower on the track than a 500 or
a GTD, but that emotion state or that experience that they're looking for is what they love, right?
And so I think in the horsepower game, we've proven there's this balance that the one with
most horsepower might not match what that customer is really looking for. But if you're
going to go for full speed like the GTD, you need more power to get around the track, but
you definitely got to put more weight on the rear axle, bigger tires, bigger wing, right?
And then you can get around the track faster, much faster than a 500.
It's a problem. I mean, we just so just tested the Corvette ZR1, and you know,
you've got 1064 horsepower, and I drove that down at Circuit Americas, we've also driven it
elsewhere, and you know, that's such a lot of car. You know, it's an extra, you know,
it's an enormous amount of power, and you guys are getting up there as well with the GTD and
LZ. From a consumer perspective, you put these cars, and it's the same with the Raptor, isn't
it? Raptor is such a massive, heavy vehicle with this enormous amount of power. Is there a point
where you look at, you know, your consumers and say, we're giving them too much car? Because
certainly with ZR1, there was a certain nervousness around that car that it's, you know,
you can have all the electronics to reel it back in, but it's a hell of a lot of car.
Yeah, I think we haven't come across that in the internal combustion space yet. I think there's a
diminishing size of, you know, how much power you can get out per cylinder per displacement. So we
come to an outpowering the rear grip, or in the four-wheel drive system, the four tires.
And I think from the customer's perspective, my favorite one when I ask that question is how
much power is in that? It's when you black out when you're doing a zero to sixty.
Yeah, I think we're getting closer to that point with some of these cars. I mean,
some of these things are pretty, pretty amazing. You know what? So let's take a quick break and
then I want to talk about Raptor as well. So we'll be right back. Hey guys, it's Matt again. I just
wanted to give a big shout out to everyone who's been coming out to our Bravago Hard Seltzer tasting
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All right, everyone, let's talk about drinking and driving a decision that will change your
whole world. Things will never be the same once you get a DUI because legal fees, time and court
are just the beginning. Getting into a crash is another way your world could be irreversibly
changed after drinking and driving. Your vehicle may not be the only thing that gets damaged in
that crash. You could face a life altering injury or even death, but you're not the only one who
could face those consequences. Your decision to drink and drive could permanently change someone
else's world, whether you injure them or leave their loved ones grieving. The next time you're
out drinking, call a rideshare, a taxi, a sober friend or a designated sober driver. Always plan
for a safe ride home. The only decision that will change your world for the better is the decision
to call for a sober ride. It's never worth it to drive drunk. Don't risk it. Drive sober or get
pulled over, paid for by NHTSA.
This isn't just a game. It's a once in a generation event. The Harlem Globetrotters 100
year tour. Celebrate 100 years of high flying dunks, 100 years of showstopping moves and 100
years of changing the game. Bring the whole family and be part of the legacy. This game is once in
a century. Be there at American Airlines Center on February 15th. Go to HarlemGlobetrotters.com
for your tickets to the 100 year tour. Raptor, 15 years now. We're about 15 years into an
anniversary with Raptor and the Raptor brand has expanded. Of course, we've got the F-150,
the F-150R, the Bronco and the Ranger. We've driven them all. They're fantastic. When this
program started with the original Raptor, did you have any idea it was going to
blow up the way it did or do you think it was just going to be
just kind of the specialty niche vehicles like we did with Ford? You had good success with
Bullet and then we maybe go to Mach 1 and then maybe we do a different variation of Bullet.
You sort of set some expectations, but it's a lifestyle now. Raptor is a lifestyle.
Yeah, Raptor is a lifestyle. I went back and I've had a good fortune when I came to Ford
Performance maybe seven years ago. That's some of the original team that did the
initial launch, initial designs of that product of an F-150 Raptor.
And so a couple of things. You have to remember it was 2008 when they sold the program.
So they had to convince finance that they could break even in 2008 on the sales pitch.
And so you have people like Herman Bohnbach was the guy that had to make that promise with the
CFO that don't worry, we're going to spend this money, but it's a good deal. So you always have
with the finance team when you're selling a new idea. But from the marketing perspective,
you pull it down to this, what resounds to an F-150 that's built for the top?
And so that decision or discussion ended up, of course, it's an off-road trophy trap.
And so that pivot into it was that simple and then, okay, how do you do it? Well,
there was no cookbook grade. It's a lot simpler now for us. Yeah. If you think about it that way,
the recipe has modified over it, but it is really trying to get
factory built truck, which goes down the same assembly line as an F-150.
So one will pop off at the same time next to a limiter. That ability to make it that way
and then make it with components that are unique that really are always back to the spirit of,
hey, this is the best off-road truck we know how to make. And our partners play a big role in that.
Our engineers who we've got engineers who have laid out the Gen 3 and worked on the Gen 3,
who worked on the Gen 1 Raptor, and so that understanding of where we need to improve.
We've got off-road racers that compete off-road who are working our dynamics teams who are always
tuning, we have stock with us when we keep pushing them, they keep pushing out. Over 15 years working
together, it's quite the adventure. They have a dedicated staff and so we know more about them
than their wives do. So the relationship is really what's come out of it, but it's just that spirit
of the original truck. But I think we've got a lot more technology than we did when we laid it out,
and we have a lot more latitude on the number of parts we've changed. From the initial layout,
though, it's that spirit. And if you look at it, it did make a lifestyle. I mean, we sold the numbers
in hundreds of thousands. Think about the experiences and adventures people have. We're talking millions,
right? And it is amazing when you spend time with people that you have clubs that go to Baja,
you know, two, three times a year. We've got people with clubs that are going out of Baja.
Every race team, even Tando, uses F-150 Raptors as a chase truck in Baja. So yeah, it's become
a lifestyle, but it also really revolves around that core Baja experience. Every truck we make,
every generation, runs Baja stock, right? So then we're starting to run every year all three
trucks that run Baja. So we get that knowledge, feed it back through the system, and then that
really drives where the next gen goes. Speaking of experiences, you were just at the Raptor rally,
right? And those of us on social media, we follow so many Ford people. And the guy that's never
seems to be in an office is Mike Levine. He's always in the dirt somewhere. And I think he just
lives in a tent. Maybe that's the way to do it, is just live life super affordably by just popping
a tent everywhere you go. But Raptor, Raptor rally, what can you tell us about it? It looked like an
amazing event. It was an amazing event. So this is the second year in a row we've done that.
This one was a bigger gathering, a lot more involvement with the clubs that really defined
how to achieve that. So for the clubs, it's a great way to get together with a lot of people
together, talk about the truck. They talk about what they do in the different clubs. And then for
us, we get a chance to see their trucks, see how they're modifying them, talk about the truck.
So for the engineering teams, it gives us a chance just like any big Mustang event,
is to really have a chance to really sit there and talk. What do you love about it? How do you use
it? How do you modify it? How do you made it your own? And then what do you do with it?
Or how do you get your smile on your face? How do you drive it? And so for us, we get that out
of it. And then it's that community of what they enjoy about it, be it overlanding, be it running in
Baja, be it SoCal Raptors, we'll be off road and end up at a winery. But it was just fun.
All great groups of people. And just it is a lifestyle, they would say, also in how they come
to the day. Get up in the morning. Is it a very, I mean, obviously we were talking about Mustang
earlier. Is it a very different scene? Do you get crossovers from people who are tracking
Mustangs and also have Raptors? Or is it like a totally different lifestyle and you're just buying
into one or the other? No, here's my favorite, right? If you go on the Mustang 6G site, you can
search to how to specify the trailer you need, details back to put your GT500 in and still
tow it at the 9000 pounds of a Raptor R. So you can have your Raptor R tow your GT500. So there is
that amount of detail crossover you see. And in that, that was an enthusiast, obviously an
important enthusiast. And then, you know, do they all have Mustangs? No, but they may have
a another great customer product for us is the Explorer ST. You'll have an Explorer ST with a
Mustang fan or you'll have an Explorer ST with a Raptor as another vehicle. So we'll get that.
But I think they're all out there. What I think the common thread is they're not sitting at a
computer, I don't think. They're all out enjoying life, be it at the track, be it
driving someplace on an adventure with a Mustang or going off road,
overlanding, but they're all out enjoying something. I think the common thread as an
enthusiast who is after an experience that is rewarding to drive. And you look at,
you look at the common thread of how we set the vehicles up in that it is, you know, we reward
the expert and fly to the battle. So it makes it, and that's very true how we tune a Mustang and how
we tune a Raptor globally too. At the Raptor rally, you guys were talking about going to Baja
showing off the truck and some of the performance parts that are available, the new Raptor
F-150 3.5 liter calibration that's available, which by the way, I love that the performance
parts catalog is still getting equipped with so many wonderful parts that include warranties.
One of the reasons why Alistair and Edmunds use the Ford Performance Supercharger kit on their
dark horse is amazing. You can get that kind of power with a three year, 36,000 mile warranty or
whatever was on it. So tell us about getting into what's in store for Baja this year. Are all the
Raptor products, you said all the Raptor products are racing, right? Yes, yes, they are. So, and
that's getting pretty close. I think they are basically finished the test runs and getting
fitted up to go. So, last I talked to Brian who relieved that effort for the team.
Is the vehicle, sorry, sorry, sorry, Carl, I didn't mean to cut you off.
Good. So good. No, I was actually going to move the conversation on a little bit because I also,
we're obviously looking at the F-150 here, but the vehicle I really like is the Ranger,
just because it feels so much more agile and nimble. Yeah. It's the model, and it's almost
like a bit of a sleeper vehicle in your range, isn't it? Everybody thinks that the Raptor,
they think of the F-150, but are we going to see more from the Ranger because I like that truck?
Yeah, I think it's funny. I'm very bullish on the Ranger Raptor. I think the second generation
has a great setup in it with the three-liter. I think us sharing the three-liter between
both the Bronco Raptor and the Ranger Raptor get over 400 horsepower in both applications.
Both of them are set up with live valve, which gives a tremendous amount of control and
jounce on the vehicle so you can put the power down. And then, you know, one's an ultra four
racer. If you ever take a Bronco Raptor out to Johnson Valley, it's just a hoot. And I think
what I've always, always found that everybody comes to the Ranger Raptor, it's a great
dirt track racer. It's got a lot of rebound control in it. And the way it's been tuned
by the enthusiasts in Australia who set her up, it is a lot of steering position, a lot of dirt
track racing. And my experience, I kind of understand why they did that. They run a dirt track race
and they haven't cut down the trees. So at each corner is this gigantic eucalyptus tree.
And so it really focuses you, if that's your tuning course, that you really care how the
steering feedback is. And it's how that truck's set up. And, you know, I was just talking to people
in Texas and they'll run those dirt track races with those trucks at one of the schools to show
people what it's capable of after training and stuff like that. And, you know, the way that
course is almost the same kind of dirt setup as how that trucks tune. So yeah, it's a hoot to
get out there with it. And I think what's also interesting about it, it's very popular in
metropolitan areas. So we get a lot of people in New Jersey, New York, who may change, pick that
instead of a Bronco Raptor or F-150 Raptor, just because of the mid-size pickup, a lot of
functionality to still take stuff and go places with it, but a lot less
onerous to be in a tight urban town. Yeah. The Raptor lineup, other than just saying, hey,
what do you want? Sort of the small, medium and large, right? Do you want the Bronco? Do you want
the large F-150? There's more going on, you know, in the engineering side of it for how
that vehicle is going to be used, right? Maybe you can talk a little bit about that. Is the Bronco
more of the rock climber? The Ranger is more of the high-speed off-roader, right? They do have
sort of different uses as well, other than just what fits in your parking spot.
Yeah. No, we call them superpowers. So in essence, I think the Ranger superpower is a dirt track
runner, right? It is the sporty. It runs a lot more rebound control in the shocks than the other two.
You can throw it around in its setup with a lot of power like the Bronco Raptor, but it's in,
you know, smaller O.D. tires, so it's lower to the ground. So that's what that is. It's kind of
the sporty one. You take a Bronco Raptor, it can lift the full weight of the truck on one tire
up a rock. So its requirements are set up to do that. So the front axle is based off the half
shafts, it's based off frames, based off on the front. Even though it's got, you know,
a same shock setup as an F-150 front shock, it is that capability to pull itself up over stuff,
is really what is the amazing part of it. And then with a 45-degree approach angle,
it takes, I've never driven it in Borrego and ever care about what's in front of me.
It is the freedom of driving and not super concerned about what you can get over. And
even when you drive it in Baja, it's got that same general feel that the front end approach
angle is never going to crash into something, right? It's just so, so high. And you get comments
from a lot of people who that's what they love about the truck. It's got that charging capability
because of that approach angle and just general locking front axle and all that stuff. And it
kind of leans back into the real off-road heritage of the 1960s Broncos. So a lot of people love that
about that truck. So it is an Ultra 4 vehicle. It's got, we tuned it in Johnson Valley,
climbing up the same stuff, the hammer seems to. So it's very unique in that, but it still can run
high speed in the desert on a durability course. Now the F-150, obviously it's the,
it's the big daddy, it's the godfather, right? It is the one that establishes everything. It's
has, it has to really carry the F-150 as a halo, but the Raptor grind as a halo. So it is a halo
on a halo, right? The Raptor R, right? So those vehicles are set up with the latest technology
to do. And when we do them, we make sure that each one is the best effort, right? So even when we did
the moderate freshening in 24, right? We came with new steering gears, new knuckles, new half shafts,
right? We set up the steering ratio and we put, you know, dual valve to control,
down some rebounds. And then you get that truck out there and it runs for a go at speeds that
is something I don't think we could have ever imagined back when it launched with Gen 1.
The ability to use damping control to give you, in essence, dynamic clearance in the front of
that truck, right? And so you can run over and not feel that in your steering or in your seat.
So you still have steering precision on the vehicle so you can keep pushing it. And that's back
here. From an expert, they can use that to dial the speed, dial the cut on the vehicle. And then
from a novice, they'll just feel more comfortable because they're not going to get jostled or
knocked out and feel that they've lost control of the vehicle or lost control of the steering.
So it is the one that leads, how about that from that perspective?
It's kind of interesting to talk about different personalities. If I can ask like a technology
question, obviously we've had the turbo engines, we've got the, we've gone back,
or everybody's going back to V8s at the moment, it's extraordinary times. But where do you say,
we've seen a lot of other people, particularly the Europeans, now introducing hybrid. And hybrid
makes a lot of sense in the dirt because you have that low-down torque. And either as an
ultimate performance gain, I think about things like the 911 GTS, or to give you that kind of
instantaneous pull, which is obviously fantastic off-road. And is this something that you're
looking at for the future? Or do you want to kind of keep the sort of pure experience?
Yeah, so there's a couple things to that. So I think what we're always looking for, we call it
hot torque. And so a lot of what we look at is how much torque we can get when it's 120 degrees
out in the sands, 150 degrees, in your climb in a hill as fast as you can. So that's in the deep
sands. And so in those kind of load conditions, we've set up our turbochargers to be capable of
that. And so when you start looking at a hybridization, you have an electric battery,
and you have an electric motor. And then your goal there is to guarantee that it can still
deliver that power for a long period of time. And so I think the challenge
is, can you do that and still carry all that weight? So it's the weight versus
torque trade-off over a long run in the desert, right? So a full tank of gas type of run. So can
you still provide that extra capability? Does the weight give you function equivalent to that
trade-off you're going to have by carrying around? And so that's always that thing about a raptor,
really. Everything's got to carry its own weight for what it does, because any piece of weight you
put on it, it's going to slow it down. So I think that's the challenge in hybridization
that has to be figured out. That's super interesting. I think we talked last week about
the BMW M5. And that said, there's a five and a half thousand pounds sports sedan or sports turret.
Sorry, but we can say something. Well, I was going to say,
that having a hybrid version of it is, it's really not really about gas mileage. It's about
using it off-road. And Alice and I were talking about this back in August. I drove to Monterey and
drove like a Land Cruiser hybrid. And I was like, listen, isn't the Land Cruiser for going away for
the weekend and kind of getting off the grid? Well, the hybrid version had such a small fuel
tank that it had like a 280 mile range before you had to refuel. So it kind of defeated the purpose
for me of the Land Cruiser. So in the sake of Raptor, any of them having some sort of hybrid
technology, really not about just the fuel mileage. It's about having that extra power. It doesn't
make sense to have that power when you need it. But still, you're right. You can't go to an eight
gallon fuel tank because you've got a battery on there. I mean, you won't even get out of LA
with that little fuel, right? So I could see that being the difficult engineering
part of it going. How do we make this thing a vehicle that you can go off the grid with, right?
Go away for the weekend or hit the dirt and then be able to come back and still have that power
available. But yeah. Alistair, what are you going to say? No, I was just going to say, like, to
finish this technology conversation. If we'd been having this chat two years ago, we'd have been
saying, you know, where's the EV, where's the F-150, you know, Lightning Raptor. And, you know, it
feels like, you know, obviously we've had Mustang Mach-E rally and everything else. Now, that wasn't
correct. That wasn't a Ford performance or a Ford racing as it is now, Carl, was that that was
actually a separate thing. But I guess the follow-up is, where are you with EVs? And, you know, will
you do Ford racing EVs? Yeah, you know, I think the EV we have is the Transit EV, right? That
demonstrator. So I think we're learning from that, what I'd say at that point. So it ran
Pike Peak. And I think that was an interesting demonstration for a set of technology in that
application. And I think it's another case where the race application is trying to learn from that
and see where we can go with it. Yeah, we're sort of good with it. It's enormous. Like, I think that
I was sort of good at first words. That's like, it's like you think of it as being sort of transit
size. It's not. It's like, it's not. It's big. So there's the Ford Supervan, which the Supervan name
right has been around for a long time. But then when it switched to EV and started doing the Goodwood
Hill Climb, putting down impressive numbers. And I think did you run the Supervan at Pike
Peak or was it the Lightning, the racing version, the Hill Climb Lightning? Because we saw it at
the LA Auto Show last year and walking around the truck, like you said, Alastair, it's like you look
at the truck, it's massive. And then you go to the back, there's like, there's no pickup anything in
the pickup truck. It's just a massive like rear diffuser and electric motors back there. But
yeah, the question is, is how much of that technology, because you're making these cool
demos, these racing demo vehicles, does that translate into any of the performance street
products that you're making? Yeah, I think that that's the thing we got to figure out, right?
So a lot about the demonstrators is to gain knowledge of what is that boundary out there?
What is the limitation technology and take that back and figure out
in essence, how you can cascade from race back to a road car.
And talk, that's a nice segue into obviously Ford is back in Formula One next year with with
Red Bull, quite a useful driver that you have. Is that how we understand it's a technology
partnership and everything else, but will you see like technology from there? Will that will
that kind of infuse the road cars? Can you can you draw a direct link or how how sort of hands
on are you as the road car guys with some of the kind of extreme technology that everyone's getting
into? I think from those applications, I think it can be small stuff like, you know,
how you do 3D printing of metallic components, right? So it's another example of methods and
tools, right? And so you have to push the envelope of 3D printing technology to go from
CAD to race, right? In any absolute sense, right? So that's what you're going to have to do and
to be to beat that competition and really move forward, right? And so it pushes the envelope
in that technology as an example. And then, you know, from that, it can be how we do a rapid change
on XYZ component on our development to shrink the time from concept to customer application.
So in a simple way, that knowledge you create as an engineering team and how you can solve issues
on the race time clock, it sits in either the product development stage or the system ideas that
could go in the production. Because we spend time making, in essence, the virtual car we make
just like the race team does the same thing. And then we test the virtual cars and simulators.
We use the same simulators to do Raptor as they do simulators for, you know, training,
driver training, right, type of thing. So those tools and methodologies of how you can go in the
initial analytical phase is the way to share that ability and in F1, you're obviously pushing the
limits of everything, right? So it's more about actually about process than about the end product
in a way? Yeah. You can always get the process pieces because that's the easy one. And then as
you go along, obviously the F1 chemistry is the F1 chemistry, you know, that type of stuff. It's
on my end before we wrap up is we sat down not too long ago with Jim Farley and he was talking
about, we were at the racetrack, we were at Monterey, so racing was the topic. He was talking
about getting into Baja and racing there and all the variants of Mustang being racing and how he
saw Mustang going after Porsche, the different variations of 911. And I said, okay, but 911
has a 911 Dakar, an off-road version of their 911. I was like, when do we see the Mustang version
of that? Will we see that? And he didn't say no. So what's your thought on that? An off-road version
of Mustang? I think, you know, the web has a lot of pictures of it. If you look at it and scroll
through it. So it's something that obviously the community is interested in. And then it's just a
question of, can you make something that, you know, delivers on that and how big is that segment?
So I think it's been out there for different ways to wrap the ride. I think you looked at,
I think I said it was basically a Mustang Raptor. And so I think it's out there. Is it the first
place we go? I think Jim is going to know better than me at this point in time. So your conversation
with Jim is probably better on that topic than me. So a lot of stuff we do is a little bit, you know,
near-term type thing. Yeah. I mean, the thoughts seem kind of silly, but also not because of this
evolution of the Raptor lineup, the products, the amount of engineering, the suspension development,
everything that you've guys put into that. This isn't a complete departure by going, hey, you know,
we're, you know, we're, you know, you know, Rolls Royce and now we got to do a monster truck.
Like that would be insane. I've driven the Lamborghini Huracan off-roader. So, you know,
everything's possible. Yes, that's right. We'll have to see. Yeah. Okay. Just thought maybe there
was something there. Who knows? You know, we're running out of time here, but I appreciate all
of it. We got to have you back on again soon. I know there's, like I said, a lot going in the
works. Congratulations on this anniversary with Raptor and good luck at Baja. I think it's going
to be exciting and you guys are going to, you guys are going to tear it up out there.
Thank you. I'll ask for any final thoughts from you as well.
No, just thank you. Thank you for your time. I mean, we have the, Matt and I both have the
privilege of, you know, we've been both been in this game a long time and we come on media
launches and everything else. We get to speak to people like yourself very regularly. It's
great to be able to share those conversations a bit more broadly because I always enjoy having
dinner and a glass of wine and, you know, sort of just talking cars with people. It's nice to,
it's nice to be able to kind of share that in a more sort of public environment. So,
thank you for your time. I really appreciate it. No problem. Thanks guys. Have a good one.
Thanks so much.
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About this episode
Carl Widmann, Ford Racing Chief Engineer and former Mustang Chief Engineer, shares insights on the evolution of Ford's performance vehicles, including the Mustang and Raptor. He discusses the challenges of balancing power and grip in high-performance cars, the community engagement through events like the Raptor Rally, and the future of hybrid technology in off-road vehicles. The conversation also touches on the unique characteristics of the Raptor lineup and the potential for a Mustang off-road variant, highlighting the brand's commitment to enthusiasts and performance.
