50 years ago, off-road legend Rod Hall drove a Ford Bronco to victory at the Baja 1000. Since then, no other 4×4 has achieved the overall win. Ford is ready to head back to the dust though, and the Blue Oval brand is looking for some glory. And it will be running a brand-new Bronco down in Mexico. Say hello to the Ford Bronco R race truck.

The new truck is being developed by Ford Performance in collaboration with Geiser Bros Design and Development, and Baja champion Cameron Steele. While this is a fully built racing truck, the body lines do give us a solid idea of what’s store for the forthcoming production truck. And with Cameron Steele leading the charge from the driver’s seat, it should do quite well. The team will compete in Class 2, which allows a maximum engine displacement of 3.5-liters. That engine must be stock from the manufacturer. So either Ford will stuff its 3.5-liter EcoBoost in there, or run a smaller 2.7-liter V6 TT. An eagle-eyed reader over on Jalopnik’s story on the truck believes it to be the (already Baja proven) 2.7.

Besides the powertrain, this Bronco R packs massive travel (14-inches front, 18-inches rear) thanks to its custom Fox suspension setup, and 37-inch BFGoodrich tires. Regardless of all that, this Bronco looks seriously bad ass.

And we can’t wait to see how it does down in the dirt.