Ford's Very Gay Ranger Raptor Heads to Goodwood to Spur Conversations About Inclusion
Ford is keeping the Goodwood Festival of Speed colorful in celebration of Pride Month. It’s bringing a truck called the Very Gay Ranger Raptor to the event.
The rainbow-colored truck, which also has gold accents, will do more than just catch eyes and a take a run up the hill — it will be used to help get attention towards what Ford is calling “Tough Talks”.
These talks will involve gay Welsh rugby player Gareth Thomas, racing driver Abbie Eaton, comedian Catherine Bohart, and Lord March. The conversation will be about how the automotive industry can be more inclusive for the LGBTQIA+ community.
This isn’t the first Very Gay Ranger to exist — the original truck was a project of Ford of Germany, built for the Christopher Street Day celebration in Cologne. It came about as a response to a social-media user calling the company’s Performance Blue paint color “very gay.” So, in a bit of trolling the homophobes, Ford turned a negative into a positive.
Not only that, but those who have a nose for the history of Ford in Europe, the Very Gay Ranger was also a homage to a rainbow-colored Ford Ka pickup conversion that was built in 1998, also for the Christopher Street Day celebration.
It’s obviously Pride Month here in the States, too, and Ford has celebrated by building a Ford Bronco Wildtrak with the same paint scheme. It debuted at the Memphis Pride Fest this month.
[Images and video: Ford]
Tim Healey grew up around the auto-parts business and has always had a love for cars — his parents joke his first word was “‘Vette”. Despite this, he wanted to pursue a career in sports writing but he ended up falling semi-accidentally into the automotive-journalism industry, first at Consumer Guide Automotive and later at Web2Carz.com. He also worked as an industry analyst at Mintel Group and freelanced for About.com, CarFax, Vehix.com, High Gear Media, Torque News, FutureCar.com, Cars.com, among others, and of course Vertical Scope sites such as AutoGuide.com, Off-Road.com, and HybridCars.com. He’s an urbanite and as such, doesn’t need a daily driver, but if he had one, it would be compact, sporty, and have a manual transmission.
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“Tough Talks”. Corporate "Tough Conversations" all mean the same thing. Shut up and agree with everything they ram down your throat. I learned today cars can be gay. Next will there be a "Trans truck?"
The most important question that hasn't been asked....what color interior could possibly match that paint job???