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February 9, 2023

Jim Farley teases F-150 Lightning EV performance demonstrator

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In December, Ford teased a new EV headed to Europe. The automaker’s general manager for passenger vehicles across the Atlantic teased the Ford EV that will sit on Volkswagen’s MEB platform by lifting the a sheet, revealing a slice of the midsize crossover’s left headlight, bumper and wheel. A week after Ford announced its return to Formula 1 with Red Bull, Ford CEO Jim Farley’s done the same thing in Ford’s design studio in Dearborn. The F1 announcement came with a shadowed tease of a new performance EV demonstrator that looked like a pickup, our guess (and everyone else’s) being a hotted-up F-150 Lightning. Farley invited Red Bull reserve driver Daniel Ricciardo to the design studio to give the Honey Badger a glimpse of what’s coming, and we get a peek as well. This will be no ordinary Lightning.

There’s a new bumper with two giant intakes above a jutting front lip. And this truck’s going to be a widebody. The front fenders on the production Lightning are flush with the edges of the front lights, then expand into flared arches over the front wheels. The EV demonstrator’s front fenders immediately spread wide around the front lights, then widen into even grand wheel arches over a set of race-inspired wheels. That rear wheel arch is definitely not production. And that roll bar in the bed is likely hiding a few more surprises.

Farley didn’t give anything away beyond the image. We can tell, though, this one’s not going to be for sale, just like the Mach-E 1400 and Cobra Jet 1400. The electron-powered burnouts, our consolation prize, aren’t far away.

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Daniel Ricciardo, Jim Farley