Inside RTR Vehicles’ New Off-Road Headquarters in Farmington, New Mexico

 8 min read

What RTR Opened in Farmington

RTR Vehicles opened a dedicated off-road headquarters in Farmington, New Mexico. The address matters more than the building. Specifically, the shop sits minutes from Chokecherry Canyon, a spread of high-desert slickrock and sandy arroyo. There, Ford’s off-road partner will test suspension, driveline, and armor before any of it reaches a customer truck. RTR posted the news on July 26, 2026, after roughly two years of land searches and setbacks.

For Ford owners, this is not a corporate real estate story. RTR develops the hardware behind the 2027 Ford Bronco RTR. Ford Authority calls it the first factory-built Bronco carrying an outside performance shop’s upgrades and name. Until now, proving a damper change meant trailering parts across three states. From here, the terrain starts outside the roll-up doors.

Farmington becomes RTR’s second facility. Its first, the RTR Lab in Concord, North Carolina, outside Charlotte, still runs the drift program and the pavement side of the business. Splitting the company across a tarmac lab and a dirt shop shows where founder Vaughn Gittin Jr. sees growth. The move follows February 2025, when RTR folded the old Fun-Haver off-road team under its own name.

One question matters most to readers. Are you able to ride the same dirt? Yes, for free, in a street-legal 4×4.

Key Facts at a Glance

Detail	What RTR Says
Location	Farmington, New Mexico
Announced	July 26, 2026
Time to build	Roughly two years
Other RTR site	RTR Lab, Concord, North Carolina
Four stated purposes	Product development, customer experiences, vehicle builds, racing
Race vehicles housed	4400 and 4600 Bronco Raptors, Ranger Raptor, F-150 Raptor R, El Bandito
Fabrication equipment	Miller welders, Mazak press, stomp shear brake, bandsaws, sheet metal tooling
Nearest public riding	Glade Run Recreation Area, 19,000 acres, no fee
Open to visitors?	No

Inside the RTR Vehicles Off-Road Headquarters

Out front, the building reads like a showroom rather than a race shop. RTR describes a main prep area styled to display race-ready machines. Offices, a media workspace, shipping and receiving, and a kitchenette fill out the rest. Out back sits the working half. Specifically, the fabrication shop runs Miller welders, a Mazak press, belt sanders, a stomp shear brake, bandsaws, and sheet metal tooling.

Storage holds spare engines, tires, axle shafts, and driveshafts. Therefore the shop supports a full race season without shipping parts in. Notably, the fleet inside covers every Ford Racing Raptor the RTR off-road team campaigns. Alongside the 4400 and 4600 class Bronco Raptors sit a Ranger Raptor and an F-150 Raptor R. El Bandito sits here too, a 1,000-horsepower Bronco running a 5.2-liter Raptor R V8.

The Fun Runner also moved west from the Charlotte lab. Since arriving, it has picked up suspension geometry changes and portal axles. Bronco RTR and ROVR examples rotate through for product testing too. Consequently, the facility works between races rather than sitting idle.

Why RTR Chose Farmington Over Charlotte

RTR put the reasoning plainly. The land around the shop offers a kind of testing ground simply missing in Charlotte. Strip away the marketing, and the engineering point holds. North Carolina gives you red clay, hardpack, and mild elevation. In contrast, San Juan County gives you slickrock ledges, loose sandstone shelves, deep sand washes, and roughly 5,669 feet of elevation.

Suspension work needs repeatable abuse. Tuning a bypass shock means running the same rocky wash twenty times in an afternoon, then changing shims and starting over. Trailering to Moab or Johnson Valley for one tuning window burns two days each way, which holds a team to a handful of sessions per month. Because the terrain now sits outside the door, the same work fits into an afternoon.

Loren Healy Put RTR in Farmington

RTR names one reason above all others for the location. Healy grew up in Farmington and learned Chokecherry Canyon on weekends, so the town became the natural home for the off-road program. Ford Authority spelled his surname “Healey,” yet the correct spelling carries a single E.

His record explains why RTR handed him the program. Healy holds two King of the Hammers Unlimited titles, two King of the Hammers Stock Class titles, and five Ultra4 championships. ARB and DrivingLine both describe the haul as the winningest run in Ultra4 history. In June 2026 he drove El Bandito to a class win at the 104th Pikes Peak International Hill Climb. Specifically, he took the Exhibition Ultra4 USA category in 12:03.795 as a rookie on the mountain.

Next comes Vegas to Reno on August 13 through 16, 2026. RTR calls it the longest single-day point-to-point off-road race in the United States. Meanwhile, Healy sits third in points in Stock Production Truck Mini/Mid this season, after finishing second in class at the 2026 Mint 400.

The 4400 and 4600 Race Program

RTR runs Bronco Raptors in two Ultra4 classes at opposite ends of the rulebook. The gap between them explains how a race program turns into parts you buy.

What RTR’s 4400 Car Does for the Brand

Ultra4’s 4400 class is the unlimited category the series was built around. Engine size and chassis design carry no limit, and the 2026 rulebook sets a 37-inch minimum tire rather than a maximum. Beyond safety equipment, a car still needs four-wheel drive with working low range, a functioning reverse gear, and an 8,000-pound winch on synthetic line. Consequently, a 4400 car shares almost nothing with a showroom truck. Outright wins and headlines come from here.

Why RTR’s 4600 Car Matters to Buyers

The 4600 Stock class runs the opposite rules. Competitors keep the factory frame, the factory engine block, and the factory transmission case. Then they run 35-inch DOT tires, one shock per corner capped at 2.65 inches of body diameter and 14 inches of stroke, plus mechanical steering.

Here is our read on the strategy, since RTR has not published one. A stock-class entry is a development mule with a race schedule attached. Whatever breaks on a 4600 Bronco over a 200-mile desert course breaks on a customer truck eventually, only slower. Healy’s two Stock class titles show RTR has the driver to pull real data from the rulebook. Meanwhile, the 4400 car keeps the brand visible. Ford runs a similar approach with its Bronco Raptor race program in bone-stock classes.

What the RTR Vehicles Off-Road Headquarters Means for the Bronco RTR

Connect the two threads and the buyer payoff appears. RTR states product development as one of four purposes for the Farmington shop, and Bronco RTR examples already rotate through it for testing. Whatever the 4600 program breaks on desert courses gets fixed on benches a few miles from the same terrain. The 2027 Ford Bronco RTR is where the results land.

Base cars pair HOSS 2.0 suspension with 33-inch rugged-terrain tires, a combination no other Bronco trim offers. Adding Sasquatch moves the truck to HOSS 3.0, Fox internal bypass dampers, and 35-inch tires. Under the hood sits the 2.3-liter EcoBoost four with anti-lag turbo technology, which holds boost off-throttle in Baja drive mode. It also inherits the Bronco Raptor’s 1,000-watt cooling fan.

Beadlock-capable 17-inch RTR Evo 6 wheels and Hyper Lime accents finish the look, though Ford lets you delete the lime trim. Orders open in October 2026, with deliveries starting January 2027. Ford has not announced pricing, yet it confirmed the RTR lands below the $56,620 Badlands Sasquatch. Therefore the trim sits at least $25,000 under the $81,990 Bronco Raptor. For context, see another Ford performance partner build and how many more Bronco variants are coming. The business case shows up in the Bronco versus Wrangler sales race.

Chokecherry Canyon: Where You Ride

RTR’s neighbors are public land, so the same terrain is open to you. Chokecherry sits inside the BLM Glade Run Recreation Area on the north side of Farmington. Specifically, 19,000 acres of sandy arroyos, slickrock, and rolling foothills sit at roughly 5,669 feet.

First, entry costs nothing. BLM lists no fees for the area, and full-size rigs are welcome by name. The agency’s own page calls rock crawling “using vehicles, from stock to highly modified” a popular activity there. For example, the ground hosts the World Extreme Rock Crawling Nationals and Four Corners 4×4 Week.

Rules Worth Knowing Before You Tow

The northern three-quarters of the Glade limit travel to maintained oilfield roads, signed trails and two-tracks, or dry unvegetated wash bottoms wider than your rig. Meanwhile, the southern 3,800 acres run as an open OHV area. Roughly 42 miles of marked trails cover the limited portion, though BLM designates those for motorized trail bikes and mountain bikes.

Overnight use needs a free BLM camping permit, emailed to BLM_NM_FFO_GladeRun@blm.gov and printed for your dashboard. A 14-day stay limit applies. Also, group, commercial, and competitive events need separate authorization. A street-legal truck needs no OHV sticker, since New Mexico’s OHV rules cover ATVs, side-by-sides, and off-highway motorcycles. Trailering a UTV changes the math, at $18 for 90 days or $48 for two years through New Mexico Game and Fish.

Brown Springs Campground sits about 2.5 miles north of Piñon Hills Boulevard, with 10 campsites, vault toilets, and no water on site. Fuel and groceries are 5.5 miles away in Farmington. Moab sits roughly three hours northwest, so pair the trip with Utah’s best off-road trails for a longer loop.

Final Verdict

A new building rarely deserves a reader’s attention. This one does, because of where it sits and what rotates through it. The 4600 program breaks factory parts on purpose, and Farmington puts the fabrication bench a few miles from the terrain doing the breaking. As a result, the fix cycle runs in days instead of shipping weeks.

The trade-off is patience. Owner experiences, the planned obstacle course, and the event space are ambitions rather than open doors. Nobody is booking a visit this year. RTR spent over a year building the community around its Charlotte lab, and Gittin frames Farmington as the start of the same effort. Therefore, treat every “customer experience” headline as a 2027 story at the earliest.

For value, watch the 2027 Ford Bronco RTR rather than the shop. HOSS suspension and factory-backed development under a $56,620 Badlands Sasquatch gives Bronco buyers a genuine third option between Badlands and Raptor. Pricing arrives before October orders open.

If you want the payoff sooner, point your truck at Chokecherry Canyon instead. The riding is free, the rock is real, and San Juan County has supported wheeling for more than 40 years. Should the drive run too long, a mapped Utah or Arizona trail guide gets you comparable terrain for less fuel.

Frequently Asked Questions

Where is RTR Vehicles’ new off-road headquarters?

The shop sits in Farmington, New Mexico, in the northwest corner of the state near the Four Corners. RTR has not published a street address. It joins the RTR Lab in Concord, North Carolina, as the company’s second facility.

What does RTR stand for?

RTR stands for Ready to Rock. RTR’s own about page describes it as a mindset shaped by founder Vaughn Gittin Jr. and rooted in confidence, capability, and enthusiast culture. The first Mustang RTR reached the public in 2009.

Is Chokecherry Canyon open to street-legal 4x4s?

Yes. Chokecherry Canyon falls inside BLM’s Glade Run area, where the agency lists rock crawling in stock through highly modified four-wheel-drive vehicles as a popular activity. There is no entry fee. Street-registered trucks also need no OHV permit in New Mexico.

Do you need a permit to ride at Chokecherry Canyon?

Day riding needs no permit or fee. Overnight camping requires a free BLM permit emailed to the Farmington Field Office at BLM_NM_FFO_GladeRun@blm.gov, with a printed copy on your dashboard and a 14-day stay limit. Organized group, commercial, and competitive events need separate authorization.

What is El Bandito and what did it win?

El Bandito is a 1,000-horsepower Ford Bronco powered by a 5.2-liter Raptor R V8, built by RTR’s off-road team without a rulebook. Loren Healy drove it to a class win in the Exhibition Ultra4 USA category at the 104th Pikes Peak International Hill Climb in June 2026, running 12:03.795.

How much will the 2027 Ford Bronco RTR cost?

Ford has not announced a price. The company confirmed the trim slots below the Badlands with Sasquatch package, which starts at $56,620. Therefore the RTR should land at least $25,000 under the $81,990 Bronco Raptor. Orders open in October 2026.