Ford Motor Company today revealed concept sketches for its one-off Ranger Raptor North Edition, which it expects to put into production sometime never.
The result of a collaboration between Ford Design in Australia and Kris Kringle, the world’s best-known gift-giver, development of the bespoke pickup truck has been led by a team based in Australia with involvement from across the Ford world.
Boasting new features like heated hot-chocolate holders, an infinity load box, and tailgate barbeque, the Ranger Raptor was selected, said Kringle, because it provided the all-terrain capability and creature comforts required for work and play.
The task of imagining the Ranger Raptor North Edition was led by Ford Australia designer, Kirby Masterman, and involved a global team of experts, including researchers at Ford’s Experimental Laboratory Foundation (ELF).
While the intention was for the Ranger Raptor North Edition to be his everyday sleigh for running to the shops or heading off-road on the weekend, flight capability was important to Kringle.
The result of a collaboration between Ford Design in Australia and Kris Kringle, the world’s best-known gift-giver, development of the bespoke pickup truck has been led by a team based in Australia with involvement from across the Ford world.
Boasting new features like heated hot-chocolate holders, an infinity load box, and tailgate barbeque, the Ranger Raptor was selected, said Kringle, because it provided the all-terrain capability and creature comforts required for work and play.
The task of imagining the Ranger Raptor North Edition was led by Ford Australia designer, Kirby Masterman, and involved a global team of experts, including researchers at Ford’s Experimental Laboratory Foundation (ELF).
While the intention was for the Ranger Raptor North Edition to be his everyday sleigh for running to the shops or heading off-road on the weekend, flight capability was important to Kringle.
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MotorTranscript
00:00This is Kirby, a designer at Ford Australia. He works within the highly secretive Experimental
00:10Laboratory Foundation, or ELF. I love cars. I love everything about them,
00:15just the sound, the vibrations, the feeling they give you when they transport you.
00:20It's good.
00:29Kirby is starting work on Ford's latest design brief. A returning client has asked for a
00:35raft of upgrades to be made to his everyday runabout.
00:41Due to the secretive nature of the project and time constraints, Kirby is largely working
00:46alone.
00:52Well Kirby tends to get right into character with every project. You should have seen him
00:56for Easter. But this time he's gone very deep, like worryingly deep.
01:07Yeah, I think some of my colleagues think it's a bit much, a bit too much. It's just
01:20a part of the process.
01:27With only a few days before the client presentation, the pressure is on.
01:34The brief's a tricky one. The client wants essentially the full sleigh experience. We've
01:40got the base architecture, which is the Ranger Raptor, and we want to maintain that, the
01:44essence of it. So, it's a marriage between the two. Because the Ranger Raptor's great
01:50at getting into the air, so all we needed to figure out then was, how do we keep it
01:54in the air? Wings, thrusters, snowflake generators, infinity load bed, snack station, get hungry
02:04on the trips. It's a game changer.
02:06If the presentation goes well, then the Ranger Raptor North Edition will be greenlit for
02:10production.
02:11Yeah, he's going to love it.
02:21After weeks of work, Kirby is about to present his designs to the client, who has cut short
02:25his annual summer holiday in Bonny Doon.
02:31Thank you so much for coming in. Welcome to Project North. So, we were looking at putting
02:35a rhubarb on the fort, because we're not always in urban areas, right? I know you don't like
02:41using doors. Liftoff tech, R&D in progress. Now, we've got our development drivers, Carlos
02:47Saenz, senior, not junior, and he's been driving and testing some jumping mechanisms.
02:52How do you make it go faster?
02:54So, as you flick the switches, you can notice here, the ho-ho.
03:02The hard work seems to have paid off with a happy client, but for Kirby and Ford, the
03:07real work is about to begin.
03:09Well done. Well done.
03:13Jim, he loved it. He loved it. He was stoked.
03:21Now, I've got to make the thing.