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'The number one undisputed off-road brand': Ford boss announces new direction, to overtake Toyota, Nissan, Jeep and others to become the 'Porsche' of off-roading: Report

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Laura Berry
Senior Journalist
20 Jan 2025
3 min read

If you’ve ever wondered what Ford wants to be then you’ll be happy to know the company’s global CEO and President Jim Farley has just told us — it’s Porsche.

Ford wants to be Porsche but an-off-road-kind-of-Porsche brand. Confused? Farley’s comments about Ford’s new personality were made recently in an interview with motoring industry publication Automotive News.

“Ford wants to be the number one undisputed off-road brand in the world,” Farley said to Automotive News. “We want to be the Porsche of off-road.”

The new direction is actually not that new at all. When Farley was promoted to the role of Ford’s global boss in 2020 the company had already made the decision to scale back hatchback and sedan operations and focus more on pick up trucks, SUVs, high-performance cars and tough off-roaders. 

Farley then went on to ensure that decision was carried through to fruition. We’ve seen this happen not just in the United States in the form of the Bronco Raptor, but here in Australia with the Ranger Raptor, Mustang Dark Horse, F-150 and Mustang Mach E GT. Meanwhile, the hatchback and sedan line-ups have vanished.

The brand recently unveiled the limited-run off-road focused Mustang Mach-E rally electric car.

Farley’s tenure at the top has also seen Ford represented on the off and on-road performance world stage from the World Rally Championship to Supercars in Australia. Ford has also committed to a return to Formula 1 next year and has just finished on the podium of the Dakar Rally last week with the Ford Raptor T1+.

So the latest announcement to be “the Porsche of off-road” does make sense, only there are other brands that can probably lay claim to that statement, such as Porsche for instance. Porsche won the Paris-Dakar rally in 1984 and not so long ago produced an off-road ready 911 tribute to that winning car.

Aside from Porsche’s own monster SUVs, there are other brands such as Land Rover which would probably argue that they are a more likely contender for the prestige off-road crown. Then there’s Jeep, Toyota, Nissan and a range of other brands who are well established and known for their formidable off-road vehicles which outsell those of Ford.

Ford Raptor T1+ racecar (Edited)
Ford Raptor T1+ racecar (Edited)

Farley, however, is known for his bold New Year's resolution-like statements. In 2024, Farley declared to British publication Car Magazine that Ford was ”getting out of the boring car business and into the iconic-vehicle business” although in the same year he also told the Guardian that “We have to start to get back in love with smaller vehicles. It’s super important for our society and for EV adoption.”

Ford, it appears, is trying everything perhaps to see what works best for its customers and, most importantly, what is more profitable.

The 122-year-old company needs to think fast, the arrival of many new Chinese brands offering affordable and good-looking EVs appears to have caught many of the established auto brands off guard and scrambling for a competitive edge, and Ford’s high performance off-road re-invention could be just that.

Laura Berry
Senior Journalist
Laura Berry is a best-selling Australian author and journalist who has been reviewing cars for almost 20 years.  Much more of a Hot Wheels girl than a Matchbox one, she grew up in a family that would spend every Friday night sitting on a hill at the Speedway watching Sprintcars slide in the mud. The best part of this was being given money to buy stickers. She loved stickers… which then turned into a love of tattoos. Out of boredom, she learnt to drive at 14 on her parents’ bush property in what can only be described as a heavily modified Toyota LandCruiser.   At the age of 17 she was told she couldn’t have a V8 Holden ute by her mother, which led to Laura and her father laying in the driveway for three months building a six-cylinder ute with more horsepower than a V8.   Since then she’s only ever owned V8s, with a Ford Falcon XW and a Holden Monaro CV8 part of her collection over the years.  Laura has authored two books and worked as a journalist writing about science, cars, music, TV, cars, art, food, cars, finance, architecture, theatre, cars, film and cars. But, mainly cars.   A wife and parent, her current daily driver is a chopped 1951 Ford Tudor with a V8.
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