Get to know El Bandito: The Unstoppable RTR Truck

THERE ARE RACING TRUCKS, and then there is El Bandito — a modified two-door Bronco with 1,100 horsepower and a Whipple blower. It doesn’t get much more extreme.

RTR Vehicles built El Bandito in 2021 as a showpiece for their off-road capability. It represented how far the brand had come since modifying Mustangs, before moving on to trucks and SUVs like the Ranger and Bronco.

But in the new book Ready To Rock, published by Carrara Media, author Vaughn Gittin Jr. writes that there was an unlikely source of inspiration that took El Bandito to the next level.

“Same Spirit as the Hoonicorn”

To make El Bandito, the RTR team relied on learnings from off-road trucks and SUVs. They also relied on the success of a completely different project: the RTR Hoonicorn, a twin-turbo, all-wheel drive ‘67 Mustang built for Ken Block.

The Hoonicorn was built to conquer the unexpected. Block turned it into an icon with Gymkhana videos that tackled Los Angeles River channels, San Francisco docks and Pikes Peak cliffs. That became the blueprint for El Bandito, too.

“It had to drift,” Gittin Jr. writes. “It had to jump. It had to be able to throw huge roosts, slide through corners, slide on pavement, survive a real off‑road environment. It had to do all the things.”

Loren Healy and El Bandito: A Perfect Match

Ready to Rock explains how RTR saved El Bandito from being crushed. And the truck has repaid that kindness many times over.

Loren Healy, veteran desert racer and co-founder of the RTR Vehicles Off-Road Team, is credited as the father of El Bandito. And like Ken Block in the Hoonicorn, he’s pushed El Bandito in ways you wouldn’t expect.

Earlier this year, Healy drove El Bandito to victory at the FAT Ice Race in Montana. And last weekend, he won his class at the Pikes Peak International Hill Climb. It’s conquered deserts, tundras and mountains. What’s next… rainforests?