Ford has teamed up with its fair share of third-party companies over the years, with many of those efforts resulting in various improvements when it comes to the simple act of driving. We saw precisely that recently with the integration of real-time Electrify America charger data into Google Maps recently, giving Ford EV owners up to the minute info - making road trips a bit more convenient. Now, Ford and Google have once again partnered up in a very different sort of way.
That partnership stems from a desire to add the longest off-road trail in the U.S. - the TransAmerica Trail - to Google's Street View, making it more accessible to people that don't have the time or resources to cover its rugged 5,900+ mile network of mostly unpaved roads. That particular trail also doesn't have any official signs or a singular path, which means that off-roaders and overlanders have to know what they're doing to conquer it, too.
To make this trip a reality for everyone - at least, virtually - Ford and a small team set out in three different vehicles - including a Ford Ranger, Ford Expedition Tremor, and a Ford Bronco Badlands, with the latter SUV serving as the vessel used to capture all of the necessary imagery, and the first two carrying gear and the rest of the crew. The team started out on the coast of Oregon, traveling to the shorelines of North Carolina - a trip that took 32 days to complete.
As one might imagine, that journey spanned just about every kind of terrain imaginable, with Mother Nature adding to the list of challenges the team already had to deal with. Regardless, it turned out to be quite the epic trip, with the team spending some time at motels while also camping out in the wilderness, eating at all kinds of small town restaurants, and of course, taking care not to disturb the natural terrain. Now, the fruits of that effort can be enjoyed by anyone with access to Google Maps, too.
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