Since taking over in 2020, the CEO has aimed to re-energise the Detroit marque’s image through his passion for motor sport.

Ford will re-enter the F1 fray by joining forces with Red Bull to produce its 2026 F1 powertrain, and has a much-anticipated Le Mans LMDh Hypercar for next season. Surging ahead of those two projects though, is Ford’s Dakar mission.

We’re now in the second year of Ford’s monstrous Raptor T1+ taking on rally raid’s greatest event. It’s powered by a V8 engine from the massively popular F-150 pick-up, and is run by renowned Cumbrian rallying concern M-Sport. The formidable challenge isn’t just posed by the unforgiving landscape though: Ford it also taking on the might of Toyota’s massively successful Hilux and the Dacia Sandriders, run by British motor sport mercenaries Prodrive with off-road legends Sébastien Loeb and Nasser Al-Attiyah behind the wheel.

A debut 2025 Dakar podium from Mattias Ekstrom was a good start for Ford, and now the 5-litre V8 beast is a regular stage winner courtesy of the Swede, rally legend Carlos Sainz, Dakar winner Nani Roma and rising American star Mitch Guthrie.

With footage of those drivers now cramming Farley’s phone memory, we sit down with the CEO just before the event’s midpoint back at the Ford bivouac – part of the Dakar’s travelling paddock – to discuss the brand’s motor sport mission.

Just like in its opening gambit when announcing its Hypercar, Farley and Ford are seeking to summon the spirit of La Sarthe’s greatest battle to weave a narrative around its Dakar mission.

“Beating Toyota here is kind of a spiritual moment, actually, not so different than beating Ferrari at Le Mans,” he opines.

“Le Mans and Dakar [sometimes] seems impossible to win, and the outright win matters. For us as an American brand, we’ve won everything [else]. F1 championships [as an engine manufacturer], IndyCar, NASCAR, Super V8s in Australia, Le Mans – we’ve won all races around the world, but there’s one race we haven’t, and it’s the centre of our brand, which is to be the Porsche of off-road.

“Beating Toyota is very personal for me too, because I worked there for 25 years, and I really respect their company, the Hilux and Land Cruiser. When you’re on the dunes, like we all were with all those 30-year-old Saudi kids, they’re all driving Hiluxes and Land Cruisers, and they grew up generationally doing that.”

This points to why Dakar has come first ahead of IndyCar or a greater commitment to WRC as part of Ford’s renewed motor sport focus.

Farley says he wants to show Fords can be reliable, erasing memories of Detroit’s sometimes wayward quality control. More than that, he simply wants to sell more cars, and sees the Middle East as a great place to do it.

“When I asked [Ford privateer] Roman Dumas about Dakar, he said when he raced here five years ago, there was hardly anyone in the dunes. And this year, he almost hit someone! There were so many people.

“Something is happening here in Saudi with Dakar that is very special. The fans really understand the sport now.

“We have the chance to win one of the most prestigious races in the world, and to do it in the Saudi desert is really exciting. This can’t be just a North America off-road image for the company. It’s a young country, they have a bright future in front of them. They understand the desert, they understand off-road, maybe more than almost any country this is part of their cultural history.

“This is our North Star in motor sport. I’m glad I’m not in the shampoo business, because the car business has an indigenous sport called motor racing! And as long as we make motor cars, this is our sport, this is our industry.”

Farley and co are clearly trying to reboot the old American maxim of ‘Win on Sunday, Sell on Monday’, but taking it to a new extreme with the three-pronged attack of F1, Le Mans and Dakar.

However, the Raptor is a prototype. Aside from the detuned Coyote engine, the whole thing has been built from the ground-up. Manufacturers often press the technology cross over from motor sport to the car in your drive, but is the Dakar project just something to boost Ford’s image, or will it actually help improve what’s coming off the production line at Dearborn and elsewhere? And can the Ford truly achieve Farley stated aim of also becoming an “enthusiast’s brand”?

“I think what we’ve learned the most is damping,” he says. “Damping has transformed our company, the whole Raptor [performance] brand.

“Part of the reason why people love Raptor around the globe is because it’s such a compliant vehicle, it’s really comfortable to drive.

“Supercars, they’re not comfortable to drive. What’s cool about [our] off-road super trucks is that they’re super fun to drive, but they’re also really comfortable.

“The damping is the core of all of this, but the T1+ category is a whole other level of technology. The Coyote engine sounds: when we’re all in the dunes, every time the Ford goes by, it sounds a lot better than all the other ones.

“I like that our company is unapologetically American with the sound. It’s important.”

Why didn’t the company go with some kind of ‘green’ solution, considering the popularity of its F-150 hybrid?

“We’re gonna race to win – so we’ll race whatever is the best technological solution for us,” he says emphatically. Audi won in 2024 with an electric car featuring a ‘range extender’ DTM engine to recharge the batteries. It takes a lot of mileage to get through the desert…

Farley says there’s still much to be gleaned from Dakar and transferred to the road cars though: “I went through the debrief with all the drivers yesterday, and we have a lot of things to improve. The biggest issue for us is cutting the tyres on rocks. It’s really a big issue for us, for everyone.”

After all this effort, will Ford stay committed to Dakar if it wins soon, or will it be a brilliant flash before the next project comes along?

Despite all the mythology around Le Mans ’66, Ford only did one more year as a works operation after that; its ’68 and ’69 GT40 triumphs were privateer affairs.

It also made the decision to offload its Jaguar F1 team after five beleaguered seasons. Buyers Red Bull took almost as long just to win a race, showing the persistence needed in motor sport.

“Frankly, for me as a CEO, the easy part is to make the commitment,” he says.

“The hard part is to win. Okay, anyone can spend the money, but to actually win all three [Dakar, F1 and Le Mans], it’s really hard.

“I’m humbled by how difficult it is, because there’s a lot of manufacturers that make the announcement, but the ones that actually win, they have the robustness to win.

“That’s why Ford Racing is a separate organisation that will not only race, but will engineer vehicles for our customers to buy – so they have a piece of Dakar when they drive their Ford. Racing for us is not a marketing expense, it’s a business.”

If you believe what Farley is saying then, as long he’s charge, Ford is here to stay in attacking motor sport on all fronts. He ends with a rallying cry to the assembled Dakar squad and its drivers.

“I’m proud of the human connection here. We’re a stone-cold killer team, and we’re going to win this ****ing race!”