Arctic Trucks preps Ford F-150 for Antarctica

Expedition 4x4 specialists, Arctic Trucks, have made a name converting Japanese utes and 4x4 wagons into polar-region-bashing expedition vehicles, and this time the Iceland-based company has turned its attention towards outfitting a Ford F-150.

The donor F-150 Lariat copped what Arctic Trucks designates as the ‘AT44’ treatment or ‘Arctic Truck 44 inch’, pertaining to the fitment of massive 44-inch Nokian winter tyres.

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To accommodate those tyres, Arctic Trucks technicians cut and removed the F-150’s wheel arches to give it enough clearance for the wheels and replace it with the fenders used for its Hilux AT44 builds.

Aside from the bigger wheels and wheel arches, the F-150 AT44 retains the same 280kW/637Nm 3.5-litre turbocharged EcoBoost V6 petrol and would only need a suspension upgrade to prepare it for any serious 4x4 expeditions.

According to Emil Grimsson, Arctic Trucks’ chairman, the F-150 was not considered as an ideal base for one of its expedition vehicles until Ford started making it lighter with the use of aluminium in its construction.

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For the conversion, Grimsson chose the Lariat spec, rather than the high-performance F-150 Raptor, as it was able to retain its street-legal status in Iceland, even with the fitment of the massive 44-inch tyres.

With a track width of 1877mm, the F-150 Raptor is a whole 160mm wider than the Lariat-spec F-150.

For now, Grimsson plans to continue testing the F-150 AT44 and prepare it for future expeditions in Antarctica before the end of 2020 or mid-2021.