Ford 'F-150 Flash' trademark suggests high-performance Lightning is near

On another one of its regular scans through U.S. Patent and Trademark Office application filings, CarBuzz found a record for "F-150 Flash" Ford requested rights to the name for the purpose of "automobiles, pickup trucks, electric vehicles, sport utility vehicles, and their structural parts." The expectation is that this is how we'll refer to the Ford F-150 Lightning demonstrator the automaker teased in February. The peek we got then showed a new bumper with two giant intakes above a jutting front lip, and widebody status activated immediately, said bumper flowing into a huge front wheel arch. A racy front wheel poked out from under the tarp, a non-production side mirror and sail panel with a spoiler in the bed made themselves known from under the tarp.

We've seen a few Ford EV demonstrators in a few configurations so far, one of them just blistered the tarmac up Pikes Peak. Ford engineers fine tuning the tri-motor electric SuperVan 4.2 in Colorado weren't sure the 50-kWh battery would last a full run to the 14,115-foot summit. Pilot Romain Dumas didn't just make it up the hill, he put the 1,400-hp van in second on the final timesheets. Winner Robin Shute drove his Unlimited Class 2018 Wolf TSC-FS to the checkered flag in 8:40.080, Dumas behind in the Open Class SuperVan at 8:47.682. The third-place finisher was 30 seconds behind Dumas.

As for the Lightning demonstrator, it's already been spotted on a trailer, shrink-wrapped in black plastic. All that could be seen was another hint of a wheel and a slice of a much larger rear motor than is fitted to production versions. The 580 hp and 775 pound-feet of torque in the standard F-150 Lightning are about to get smoked. Ford's connection to Red Bull Racing — the carmaker brought Red Bull reserve driver Daniel Ricciardo in for the teaser shot, and enters the F1 World Championship in 2026 — makes us hope there's more involved in the transformation to Flash than just a body kit and larger motors. A DRS wing on that sail panel would be pretty cool, after all.

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