“Ford Mustang Raptor: An Off-Road Version of the Iconic Sports Car?”

The automotive public is mostly associated with the name Shelby with fast versions of the Ford Mustang, but the Ford car company wants to expand the field of activity of the iconic sports car beyond asphalt. So it is preparing a Raptor version – at least according to the American website Car and Driver.

“Deep inside Ford’s headquarters in Dearborn, there is an idea to raptorize everything,” the site writes. The F-150 Raptor has been around for a long time, the Ranger Raptor is also enjoying success, and the Bronco Raptor is almost a given.

In the light of popular strong crossovers, one could also think about the Explorer or Expedition models in a sharp off-road version, but after Porsche and Lamborghini started off-road sports cars, the mustang also makes sense.

According to the Americans, such a car could have an almost five-hundred-horsepower five-liter eight-cylinder connected to a ten-speed automatic transmission. Because of the limited space in the central tunnel, it probably wouldn’t get a reduction gear, like the offroad ones have.

The difference compared to the “regular” Mustang would be mainly in the all-wheel drive with an electronically controlled center differential. There should also be Fox adaptive electronically controlled dampers and longer springs, along with other chassis tweaks to help the car sit 5cm higher than the ground. Of course, this is not for difficult terrain, on the contrary, it looks like a car exactly in the spirit of the Hurricane Sterrato or the 911 Dakar.

The seventh generation of the Ford Mustang should go on sale later this year, and the Raptor variant, if it comes, is said to be expected in 2026. However, for now, we’ll take it as speculation, we probably won’t get confirmation from the automaker until some Friday.