The Ford Motor Company booth was the place to be at the SEMA Show this year. With two vehicles and an engine stand cloaked, rumors circulated like wildfire about what the blue oval had to reveal. Thoughts of large cubic-inch engines to electric motors buzzed through the air. The cloth covering the vehicles didn’t stand a chance against enthusiast eyes who immediately recognized the body lines of an F100 and 1969 Mustang. The real mystery was what powered the vehicles and what was on the engine stand.

Unveiling The Future

As the crowd grew, so did everyone’s anticipation. Keith Urban and Jay Leno took the stage — Urban pulled back the cover to showcase his newly restored 1969 Mustang. Leno was eager to display the next vehicle, which was appropriately guessed as an F100. The F100 was sprayed white and accented with copper tones. The true shock came from what powered this beautiful truck. As some expected, an electric engine took charge of pushing this F100 down the road.

Finally, the cloak of mystery on the stand was removed. Atop the perch sat an electric motor code, named ‘Eluminator’ and supplied by Ford Performance. While electric motors are far from new to Ford, the notion to carry this as a crate item with Ford Performance is. This motor will be placed alongside engines like the 5.0 Coyote, 5.2L Predator and even the massive 7.3L Godzilla. This fact had us running to the Ford Performance booth at SEMA to gain some insight. 

We tracked down Mike Goodwin who is in charge of the Ford Performance to get the rundown on how this motor came about.

“The team and I sat down and came up with the idea of removing the Mach E GT front motor and introducing it as a crate item,” said Goodwin, adding, “Furthermore, the Eluminator will allow people the opportunity to electrify their current hot rod while retaining the Ford branding.”

Goodwin isn’t wrong either — a hot rod is the perfect place for this motor. Weighing in at only 205 pounds, it’s nearly half the weight of most V8 engines. While lightweight, it still produces an astounding 281 horsepower and 317 ft-lbs. of torque! The most shocking part of all is the price tag of only $3,900.