FORD HEROES

Love him or hate him, you can’t deny Ken Block has done an awful lot to raise the profile of fast Fords in recent years, and for that we salute him…

This month we salute Ken Block.

If you want to see the true embodiment of the American dream, look no further than Ken Block. Born in California in 1967, he enjoyed a wide range of extreme sports through his youth, particularly skateboarding and snowboarding, and in 1994 he monetised his passion by cofounding DC Shoes – a brand which became a staple of the sports he loved. Ten years later, the firm he helped set up in a garage was bought by Quiksilver for $87m, allowing Block the freedom to switch from designing apparel to becoming a rally driver! In 2005 he started competing in a Subaru, but what really made him a household name was his savvy marketing tactics. With a keen eye for shareable content, Block used social media to share amazing videos of his driving hijinks, the high production values and unbelievable stunts earning huge revenue and sponsorship. In 2010, he founded Hoonigan Industries, an apparel brand for car enthusiasts; it was also the year that, having always rallied in Subarus, he signed a deal with Ford and really took his rally and Gymkhana efforts into the big leagues.

As part of the Monster World Rally Team, Block drove an M-Sport-prepped Focus RS in the WRC (the first American WRC driver ever); he also drove in the Rally America Championship in a Fiesta, competed in the X-Games, and released Gymkhana 3 – the first Gymkhana video in which he drove a Ford. 2010 was a busy year!

And Block has been consistently busy since. He continued driving Fords in the WRC through to the 2014 season, making the move to Global RallyCross in 2015, his Focus RS RX and later Fiesta RX43 becoming tuning icons. Oh, and let’s not forget the Hoonicorn – a classic Mustang built for Gymkhana, with 4WD and 845bhp.

Ken Block is like a force of nature – the sort of person Hollywood will make movies about in the future. And with his long association with Ford, we’ll undoubtedly see many more of his high-octane Blue Oval adventures all over YouTube for many years to come.