Ford’s mini ute to get F1 expertise!
Ford’s utes are about to undergo one of the biggest changes ever with the brand’s boss turning to Formula 1 for help in competing with Chinese rivals.
Ford‘s global boss Jim Farley believes the key to his company’s success lies in Formula 1 know-how, according to an interview with British motoring publication Autocar.
“One of the biggest gifts that Formula 1 ever gave Ford was our skunkworks team in California. Almost every one of them either comes from Formula 1 or is a huge F1 fan,” Farely told Autocar.
Read More About Ford
Ford made a return to F1 in 2026 with a technical collaboration with Red Bull racing. The partnerships sees Ford co-develop hybrid powertrains for both the primary Red Bull and junior Racing Bulls teams.
That gives Ford access to the experience and know-how of the pinnacle of motorsport, and this has led to the formation of Ford’s top-secret skunkworks – Universal EV.
Based in California’s Silicon Valley, Universal EV has developed an electric vehicle platform that can be fitted into a range of vehicles from pick-ups to sedans, hatches and vans.
While Ford hasn’t confirmed all of the vehicles that will use the Universal EV platform, yet, it has released a teaser video of its design and engineering teams working on sketches of its upcoming small pick-up that’s expected to revive the Ranchero name.
The missing piece of the puzzle, according to Farley, is aerodynamics which will allow smaller batteries to be used. And this is where he wants more F1 input into the skunkworks program. But, it’s not proving easy.
“It turns out that finding people who love motorsport who want to ‘build a buffet in Vegas’ – a $30,000 EV that’s nice-looking and fun to drive – is hard,” he told Autocar.
“A lot of people want to stay in F1 and the challenge is picking people from motorsport who can actually design a breakthrough product. But when people see what we did with this skunkworks, they will say: ‘Wow, that’s cooler engineering than a hypercar. They will be shocked.”
The reference to a $30,000 EV by Farley hints at the small pick-up which Ford says it hopes to sell for the same price.
The pick-up will be a smaller sibling to the F-150 Lightning Ford and will likely use the Universal EV platform, with a possible 2027 launch.
Whether it makes it to Australia is another question. That might only be possible if the vehicle is produced in right-hand drive for markets such as the United Kingdom.
We might not see the Ranchero arrive in Australia anytime soon but the Universal EV platform will likely underpin other Ford models to be sold locally.
This is not the first time Farley has pivoted Ford’s direction in the hope of surviving the threat posed by the popularity of affordable and high-tech Chinese vehicles.
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, “We have to start to get back in love with smaller vehicles. It’s super important for our society and for EV adoption.”
In 2025 Farley announced that he wanted Ford to be “the Porsche of off-road“, referencing the brand’s involvement with off-road racing and applying that skill and engineering to its adventurous vehicles.
Currently Ford has a limited number of models in its Australian range, with the Mustang sports car, Ranger ute and Everest SUV bringing in the lion’s share of sales.
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