Most electrical autos are constructed for the prim streets and highways of cities, by no means to sully their tires in something dirtier than a mud puddle. After which there are the EVs that prefer to gobble gravel, take flight over a mud ramp, or typically wallow within the mud. Ford’s new one-off electrical truck, the F-150 Lightning Switchgear, falls firmly in that latter class of plug-in car.
A yr in the past, Ford teased a high-performance demonstrator based mostly on its F-150 Lightning, with the corporate’s CEO Jim Farley tweeting a photograph of himself pulling again the quilt to point out a portion of the truck’s entrance finish.
Now the corporate is lastly prepared to tug again the whole cowl. The F-150 Lightning Switchgear is a high-riding, high-performance, all-electric demonstrator created in collaboration with champion drift driver Vaughn Gittin Jr. and his aftermarket tuning firm RTR Autos.
For many who aren’t intimately accustomed to demonstrators, consider it as a one-off car designed to showcase Ford’s racing and efficiency bona fides. Ford sees it as a “testbed” to exhibit its capabilities dealing with excessive off-road circumstances. Usually these demonstrators are artistic collaborations with outdoors teams — on this case, Gittin Jr., who additionally labored with Ford on its F-150 RTR Final Enjoyable Haver challenge in 2016.
The Switchgear sits alongside different demonstrators, together with the SuperVan 4.0 and 4.2, the Mustang Mach-E 1400, Cobra Jet 1400, and F-100 Eluminator. The efficiency truck will make its public debut on the King of the Hammers off-road racing occasion on January twenty fifth in Johnson Valley, California.
Consider it as a one-off car designed to showcase Ford’s racing and efficiency bona fides
The look of the truck is de facto outlined by the carbon composite add-ons to the outside, like protruding entrance fenders and entrance and rear bumper covers, in addition to the livery that pays homage to Ford Efficiency, the automaker’s in-house racing and motorsports division.
Ford created two variations of the truck: one for floor roads and the opposite for off-roading. The road configuration sports activities 33.23-inch Nitto NT420V 305 / 55R20 tires, whereas the off-roader rides on large 37-inch Nitto Ridge Grapplers. Additionally discovered on the off-road model are further tires mounted on a rack within the truck’s mattress, and metal fabricated bumpers, skid plates, and rock rails.
In creating the Switchgear, Ford centered totally on two areas: chassis and suspension. The impartial entrance suspension depends on a double-wishbone configuration with coil-over shocks, stabilizer bar, and droop restrict straps. The rear suspension additionally has a stabilizer bar and droop restrict straps however swaps the double-wishbone for semi-trailing arms.
The entrance and rear monitor width are each 80 inches, a “vital” improve over the common F-150 Lightning, which Ford says is required for monitor stability. The suspension makes use of Fox three-inch diameter inside bypass shock absorbers, “plus distinctive entrance and rear bumpers to enhance strategy and departure angles,” Ford says.
Ford doesn’t have any rapid plans to place the Switchgear into manufacturing, but it surely’s fully attainable — and even anticipated — that a few of its options may very well be made accessible to truck house owners someplace down the road.