Forza Horizon 5 Festival Playlist Weekly Challenges Guide Series 16 – Winter

Forza Horizon 5 Festival Playlist Weekly Challenges Guide Series 16 – Winter

As Ned Stark famously said, in a broad Yorkshire accent, Winter is coming. In fact, in Mexico it is already here, but instead of snow and blood, what we have in Forza Horizon 5 is sunshine and cars to misbehave in.

Yes, in Mexico, Series 16 Winter means the sun has got his hat on, and so we are going into the dry season in Forza Horizon 5 as we take a look at the latest round of Festival Playlist Weekly Challenges. Want some cars? Want some tunes? You got it. 

Part 1: #Forzathon Weekly Challenge – Lobo

For some reason, in Mexico, the Ford F-150 Raptor is known as the Lobo. If I had to put my money on who would emerge victorious in a fight between a Raptor and a wolf, it isn’t going on the furry participant, let’s put it that way.

Still, it is the 2017 model that we need, and if you don’t have one in your garage yet, they are for sale at the Autoshow for  63,000 credits. It is also the prize for completing the “Gotta go Fast” championship in the Hot Wheels park.

Chapter 1 – Lobo Raptor

Get in your Lobo/Raptor and take it for spin. Easy!

Chapter 2 – Unstoppable

Now, this thing is clearly built for some serious abuse, and so to prove that it is as hard as nails, we have to win a Cross Country event. Looking at the events coming up, I’m going to tune mine a tad, and the share code is: 251216374.

Chapter 3 – Express Delivery

Take your Laptor (or Robo if you prefer) and win nine stars on Trail Blazers. With the tune from above, this is pretty simple. The best one I have found for this is just off the main highway, called Malpais. It is near the coast on the left of the map.

Chapter 4 – Through Rain And Shine

Finally we need to score a cumulative 100,000 skill score in the car.

Going to the Dunas Blancas and driving over the dunes will see you right.

And with that, the weekly challenge is complete.

Forza Horizon 5 S16 winter Raptor

Part 2: Challenges

Only a couple of PR Stunts to get your teeth into this week, and some racing, but at least the Eventlab is back, eh? My favourite. Let’s see what we need to do to win through this week, shall we?

The Trial – Sierra Challenge

In an event that is right up the alley of people my age, the car we have to drive in The Trial is a real beast, the Ford Sierra RS500.

This takes me right back to my youth, when Max Power and Fast Ford magazine had Cossies in every week and so I’m excited to get behind the wheel.

The tuning limit is B Class 700, and so I made this: 364526118.

Assuming you get lucky with your randomly selected “team mates” from the darkest reaches of the internet, and manage to win two out of the three races, you’ll walk away with a Ford Shelby GT350R.

Forza Horizon 5 S16 winter Sierra

Eventlab – Presents One Eighty Hanger Run

We have a set car for this event, and we have to use the Hoonigan Cossie. Well, it’s a good start, isn’t it? Keep it stock is my advice, as playing solo it is just you against the clock.

What do we have in store, I hear you ask? Well, it is a run around an airfield, in the dark, where the ultimate objective is to do a handbrake turn at the end of the course. Not one of the finest Eventlabs, but a long way from the worst I’ve played.

We can walk away with a Green Pinata Head for completing this. In better news we also get three points towards the weekly car prize! 

Drift Zone – Hillside

This has got my name written all over it. Drifting, in a Ford from before 2010, tuned up to S1 Class 900? What could be better?

Sadly, the stock drift cars are too new, so I went with an oddball choice – A Ford F-100 from 1956, with a little over 1700 bhp under the bonnet. This has no trouble smoking its tyres, believe me! The share code is: 136787743.

Scoring above the target score (in this case it is 140,000 ) will see us get a Super Wheelspin. Good luck!

Trail Blazer – Canyon Run

This is seemingly a pretty simple ask: take any Ford made before 2010, tune it to a maximum of B Class 700, and then race through this Trail Blazer and arrive with more than 20 seconds on the clock. I went with a very left field choice, a Crown Victoria!

The share code is: 284626471. Stick to the road as much as you can to do this.

Another Super Wheelspin can be yours for zooming around fast enough.

Seasonal Championship – By The Numbers

For this race series, we have to take a Ford in the Unlimited Offroad category, tune it to A Class 800, and then win either the championship outright or best two out of three races in a convoy.

There isn’t a huge selection of cars to choose from this time around, and my choice was the “Brocky” With a share code of: 709656590.

Winning the championship will get us a Ford Supervan 3, which is handy, as it is the subject of another championship!

Seasonal Championship – Van Life

So long as you do these races in order, this works out well, as the prize for the last championship is the car we need for this one, the Supervan 3. We can tune to a maximum of S1 Class 900, and so I made this share code: 142867545. With 500 bhp and AWD, this ain’t shy either.

Winning the championship will get us another Ford, an Escort RS1800.

Seasonal Championship – No Wheel Left Behind

For this series of races, we need to use a Ford car, with AWD, tuned to a maximum of A Class 800.

In these days of a cost of living crisis, it makes sense to me to use the same car as for the first championship, the Brocky Ultra4 Bronco to give its full name, again.

This victory will secure us a Ford SVT Cobra R.

Part 3: Other Challenges

The Eliminator makes a comeback this week, as does the Treasure Hunt, so all hands on deck!

Photo Challenge -#FORDZATHON

Going back to my era with another fast Ford, the photo challenge this week is to photograph the 1986 Escort RS Turbo in Guanajuato. The classic RS Turbo has to be white, I feel, and so you will see when I show my efforts.

Our reward for some happy snapping is a Fireworks car horn, which is always fun.

Forza Horizon 5 S16 winter Photo 1
Forza Horizon 5 S16 winter Photo 2

Treasure Hunt – Ford Time Lucky

The clue reads “Make sure to escape in time, as you get lucky by drifting up close”. Pretty cryptic, right?

Well, the picture that accompanies the words is of the location the chest appears in, which is no good. However, I got this while going for the Drift Zone challenge this month in my little Ford F-100, so I guess you need to try and drift in the weekly challenge zone?

I’ll include a picture of the chest and its location below. It contains 100 FP, which is good.

Forza Horizon 5 S16 winter Treasure 1
Forza Horizon 5 S16 winter Treasure 2

The Eliminator – Battle Royale

The Eliminator, eh?

What we need to do here is get into the top 30 drivers left alive. Now, there are two schools of thought – do you go aggressive, try to find a good car and challenge for the top spot, or, my preferred method, hide in a bush and wait for the more aggressive folk to knock each other out? It’s your call.

Whichever way you go, a Ford M-Sport Fiesta Rs will be your prize if you survive long enough.

Part 4: Hot Wheels Events

Standard weekly warning about reaching Elite rank in the Hot Wheels expansion, I take it we all know by now? Assuming you meet these criteria, you can crack on with the rest of the remaining events.

Drift Zone – Turbo Knot

Do you remember when we did the Drift Zone back on earth? Well, we need the same class of car here, so it would make sense to use the same car, wouldn’t it? In case you have forgotten, it is a Ford F-100, share code: 136787743.

Scoring over 200,000 drift points will score us a Super Wheelspin.

Seasonal Championship – Gotta Go Fast

Here it is, the final challenge of the week. We need a Ford car, tuned to S1 Class 900, and as always in these situations the answer is “Mustang!”. A Shelby GT500 from 2020, to be precise, with share code: 335181307.

Winning the championship, or best two out of three races in a convoy, will get us a Ford F-150 Raptor/Lobo thingy that we need for the weekly challenge. Nice.


With us sitting halfway through Series 16, there’s a chance you’d have already gathered up the additional reward points found in the Monthly Rivals Events. If not, tick those boxes by running some clean laps – and rival beatings – around the Horizon Baja Scramble and Emerald Circuit (Forza EV). You’ll get 4pts for beating both. 

You can then use those points – amongst the others you’ve claimed – towards the Series 16 cars. The four-week cycle gives access to the MG6 XPower for 80pts, and the Hoonicorn V2 for 160pts. And then you can get the Winter rewards too, in the form of a little Renault Clio ‘16 and Ford GT ‘05. Expect to find Spring rounding off Series 16 with gifts of the Renault Clio ‘10 and a No.14 Ford Fiesta. 

Once Winter – and then Spring – is done, get ready to head to the Far East for some Japanese drifting with Series 17. At least, we HOPE it’s Japanese drifting.   

To complete the Forza Horizon 5 Festival Playlist Weekly Challenges for Series 16 Winter, you’ll need a copy of the brilliant Forza Horizon 5 in your digital library. It’s available on Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S or PC, all via the Xbox Store, for a cash outlay or through that Game Pass subscription. 

Drop into the comments and let us know if the cars listed have helped you out this week. We want to know ALL about it. 

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