Ken Block Shows Off the Gymkhana 8 Ford Fiesta Race Car

I love rally racing and I love the Gymkhana videos, so you can expect that I am pretty excited for the debut of Ken Block’s newest Ford Fiesta ST race car. The first images and the short video were posted on Block’s Hoonigan site yesterday, possibly giving us our first look at the car that he will take overseas for the 2016 FIA World RallyCross Championship. We also get our first look at Block’s Ford race car with the Toyo Tires, which will be the subject of his tire-slaying aggressions over the next few years.

Gymkhana 8
The odds are good that if you are reading this, you know all about Ken Block and his Gymkhana videos. These videos show Block and his race car pulling off remarkable maneuvers in all sorts of situations – from the streets of San Francisco to an old movie set to a unique obstacle course set up specifically for hoonage. In some cases, Block’s teasers leading up to the debut of a Gymkhana video included some information as to what to expect, but this video simply mentions the 8th installation is set to debut on February 29th, 2016 at 9pm PST on the Ford Performance YouTube Channel.

Block’s New Car with a New Sponsor
While this teaser video makes the debut date of Gymkhana 8 official, the focus here is clearly Ken Block’s new Ford Fiesta ST RX43 rally race car. The car itself hasn’t changed much since last season, as it is still an AWD beast with a 650hp turbocharged Ford 4-cylinder engine, but the #43 Fiesta has a very new look for the 2016 racing season. The Gymkhana Grid logos make it clear that he will run this car in that form of motorsports and based on how gorgeous this car looks in this video – I am hoping that he uses the same layout for WRC.

First up, Ken Block has signed a multiyear sponsorship deal with Toyo Tires, so the Toyo logo is found on the car and on the tires themselves in bright white letters. The car is still predominantly black with Ford logos, Monster Energy Drink logos, Hoonigan logos and the decals for the Gymkhana Grid and World RallyCross Championship, but the coolest feature of this new livery is the use of ultra-reflective material. This unique finish allows the car to look like it is almost all black and dark grey in low light, but when the light hits certain parts of the car just right, color explodes from the grey areas. Also, depending on the angle of the light and the angle from which the car is being viewed, these colored areas shift from yellow to green to red to blue.

I bet that this car will look amazing when racing under the lights, changing colors as the car passes the crowd and the cameras as Ken Block looks to shake up the World RallyCross ranks.

This debut video offers all sorts of lighting effects, so we get to see Ken Block’s wicked new paint scheme work its magic on film with a musical backdrop.

Crank up your speakers and enjoy!