Ford turned one of its iconic retro trucks into an EV, but don’t get your hopes up, you can’t buy it

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Ford’s got a long history of making one-off cars to showcase its own engines, like when it made a 1,400-horsepower electric Mustang to whip around the race track, and another 1,400-horsepower electric car for the drag track. Now it’s created a different beast altogether, with a retro-styled F-100 with an electric drivetrain.

The Ford F-100 Eluminator concept truck was made for the Specialty Equipment Market Association (SEMA) trade show in Las Vegas, one of the biggest yearly conventions for aftermarket car suppliers and custom builders.

Ford is in a unique position here as they both manufacture production vehicles and also parts that custom builders create their own vehicles with.

While the outside is very much like the 1978 F-100 pickup truck that inspired the build, most of the interior and powertrain are lifted straight out of the 2021 Mustang Mach-E GT Performance Edition crossover electric vehicle.

That means twin front and rear electric traction motors which combine to create 480-horsepower and 634 lb.-ft of torque. Whew, that’s a powerful truck, but you still can’t buy one for any money.

That’s right, you can’t buy this Ford F-100 Eluminator, which is a crying shame as everyone I showed the pictures to yesterday said they’d buy one instantly if it was on the market. What you can buy is the e-crate motor that Ford used two of in the Eluminator, which costs $3,900.

That gets you the same 281hp, street-legal, electric motor that Ford uses in the 2021 Mustang Mach E GT, so you can drop it into your electrification project.

At this time, it doesn’t include anything else that you need like a control system, traction inverter, or batteries, which you’ll have to source on your own, but Ford does have plans to build out their electric ecosystem so you’ll be able to buy the entire kit you need at some point.

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Editors’ Recommendations:

• Tesla recalls over 10,000 vehicles with a faulty emergency braking system
• Michigan is building the nation’s first road that can wirelessly charge electric vehicles
• The Lucid Air is the first electric car to get a 520-mile EPA-rated range, beating out Tesla
• Ford recalled the Mustang Mach-E for the very thing they mocked Tesla about

Joe Rice-Jones

Maker, meme-r, and unabashed geek with nearly half a decade of blogging experience at KnowTechie, SlashGear and XDA Developers. If it runs on electricity (or even if it doesn't), Joe probably has one around his office somewhere, with particular focus in gadgetry and handheld gaming. Shoot him an email at joe@knowtechie.com.