Ford CEO Jim Farley is also a racer himself, and says racing is the key to growing the performance business.
CHARLOTTE, N.C. — Ford CEO Jim Farley has a mantra: “No more boring cars.”
And that’s the message from Ford Performance’s Season Launch this week in Charlotte, where the Big Three automaker highlighted its racing efforts as well as performance vehicles, including the iconic Mustang, Bronco SUV, and Raptor line of off-road pickups.
While performance cars and racing get the Ford (F) faithful excited, it’s been a growing business for Ford too. We spoke to Farley from Charlotte Motor Speedway, where the Ford Performance team and Farley himself were showing off enthusiast offerings. Below is an edited version of our conversation.
Let’s talk Ford Performance products: It’s Mustang, it’s Bronco, it’s Raptor. What’s the importance of these vehicles to Ford itself?
First of all, it’s [a] huge business. I mean, our off-road business alone is a huge percentage of our global profit, and it’s growing fast. People really love not just off-road products, but enthusiast off-road products like Raptor. These brands, this business, is a vital part of our revenue, our profit, but also our brand image.
Do you see the performance side of the business growing year over year?
Yes. We’re heavily investing in racing, and that allows us to bring technology into the product that people can buy, like the Raptor R or the Raptor series, or the Mustang GTD, or the [Mustang] Dark Horse or the Dark Horse R; all of those are because we race. We just won the Daytona 24-hour race with a Mustang [last week]. We won by two seconds; that is so exciting for our team.
Congrats on that win. You mentioned racing as part of the DNA of Ford. How does it inform products Ford sells?
CHARLOTTE, N.C. — Ford CEO Jim Farley has a mantra: “No more boring cars.”
And that’s the message from Ford Performance’s Season Launch this week in Charlotte, where the Big Three automaker highlighted its racing efforts as well as performance vehicles, including the iconic Mustang, Bronco SUV, and Raptor line of off-road pickups.
While performance cars and racing get the Ford (F) faithful excited, it’s been a growing business for Ford too. We spoke to Farley from Charlotte Motor Speedway, where the Ford Performance team and Farley himself were showing off enthusiast offerings. Below is an edited version of our conversation.
Let’s talk Ford Performance products: It’s Mustang, it’s Bronco, it’s Raptor. What’s the importance of these vehicles to Ford itself?
First of all, it’s [a] huge business. I mean, our off-road business alone is a huge percentage of our global profit, and it’s growing fast. People really love not just off-road products, but enthusiast off-road products like Raptor. These brands, this business, is a vital part of our revenue, our profit, but also our brand image.
Do you see the performance side of the business growing year over year?
Yes. We’re heavily investing in racing, and that allows us to bring technology into the product that people can buy, like the Raptor R or the Raptor series, or the Mustang GTD, or the [Mustang] Dark Horse or the Dark Horse R; all of those are because we race. We just won the Daytona 24-hour race with a Mustang [last week]. We won by two seconds; that is so exciting for our team.
Congrats on that win. You mentioned racing as part of the DNA of Ford. How does it inform products Ford sells?
Well, the first thing is you need to have road cars and trucks that are tied to your racing. And your racing makes those better. That’s really important. Second thing is technology transfer. Formula One’s a good example. [Note: Ford is joining Red Bull F1 as a powertrain partner in 2026.]
What we’re going to learn from Formula One is aerodynamics, predictive failure software that we can give to our Ford Pro customers. A lot of it is technology, software, and display for Formula One. And then, of course, [racing] is a great parts business. And most of all, it’s great for our brand; people buy trucks who are here at Charlotte watching us race. You know that drives our business. So it’s great for our company.
