In a cheeky collab for silly season... Ford Australia has unveiled an exclusive one-off ‘Ranger Raptor North Edition’ - Santa's possible ride for the other 364 days of the year. The "festive" one-off ute claims to be the fastest Raptor yet, capable of flight and travelling up to 99% of the speed of light in the process. Vision courtesy: Ford Australia
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MotorTranscript
00:00This is Kirby, a designer at Ford Australia.
00:07He works within the highly secretive Experimental Laboratory Foundation, or ELF.
00:12I love cars.
00:14I love everything about them.
00:16Just the sound, the vibrations, the feeling they give you when they transport you.
00:23It's great.
00:29Kirby is starting work on Ford's latest design brief.
00:33A returning client has asked for a raft 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.
00:55I should have seen him for Easter, but this time he's gone very deep, like worryingly
01:03deep.
01:06Yeah, I think some of my colleagues think it's a bit much, a bit too much.
01:20This is 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.
01:36The client wants essentially the full sleigh experience.
01:40We've got the base architecture, which is the Ranger Raptor, and we want to maintain
01:44that, the essence of it, so it's a marriage between the two.
01:49Because the Ranger Raptor's great at getting into the air, so all we needed to figure out
01:52then was, how do we keep it in the air?
01:56Wings, thrusters, snowflake generators, infinity load bed, snack station, get hungry on the
02:04trips.
02:05It'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.
02:30Thank you so much for coming in.
02:33Welcome to Project North.
02:35So we were looking at putting a rhubarb on the fort, because we're not always in urban
02:39areas, right?
02:40You know, you don't like using bulls.
02:42Lift-off tech, R&D in progress.
02:44Now we've got our development drivers, Carlos Saenz, senior, not junior, and he's been driving
02:49and 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.
03:01The 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.
03:10Well done.
03:13Jim.
03:14He loved it.
03:15He loved it.
03:16He was stoked.
03:17Ho, ho, ho, ho.
03:22Now I've got to make the thing.