2009 Motor Trend Truck of the Year Contender: Ford F-150
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Ford claims it sells more of its F-150 half-ton pickups to work and commercial customers than its competitors do, and Ford predicts this segment will grow to 45 percent of F-150 sales.
Toward that end, the new 2009 Ford F-150's fully boxed chassis is further fortified to provide best-in-class rigidity, payload capacity (up to 3030 pounds), and tow ratings (up to 11,300 pounds). As such, the new F-150 is well positioned to capture contractors migrating down-market out of Super Dutys to save money and gas (did we mention that a new six-speed automatic, a lighter, more aerodynamic cab, and other tweaks boost fuel economy by 12 percent with the 5.4-liter?).
Ford claims payload and towing numbers like that simply can't be had with a coil sprung rear axle, so it stuck with leafs but made them longer to smooth the ride and wider with new mounting hardware to improve lateral rigidity and roll control. Lateral grip of 0.70 g for both Fords bested all but the feathery base Dodge and Suzuki, and our rear-drive SXT scored the best stop at 133 feet from 60 mph (the three-ton Lariat needed 144 feet).
Status-conscious contractors will have eight F-150 models from which to choose (including the forthcoming SVT Raptor), which Detroit editor Todd Lassa reckons is "about four too many," adding, "If this Lariat is the third truck from the top, how much of a boudoir must the King Ranch and Platinum interiors be?" Judges praised the low noise levels and interior materials quality, though some found the design cartoonishly macho.
Still, handy features like the Tailgate Step, Box Side Step, a stowable bed-extender, and rear seats that fold up with one hand to reveal a broad, flat load floor help tally a strong superiority score. On the negative side of the ledger is Ford's aging all-V-8-engine lineup, which is composed of two- and three-valve 4.6-liters and a three-valve 5.4. SVT will bring a bigger 6.2 in the Raptor, and an EcoBoost V-6 is likely to join the lineup for folks who don't tow, but the diesel is on hold.
The base V-8 handily outruns and outhauls the V-6 Dodge, but sounds and feels strained doing so. Gearing that's a third shorter than the Dodge's kept our 5.4L 4x4 within 0.6 second of the big Dodge, but costs it at the pump, where both trucks averaged just 13.2 mpg over 500 miles of mixed driving. The new six-speed automatic features excellent tow/haul-mode programming (ordering downshifts with a tap of the brakes on downhill grades, holding lower gears, etc.), but in normal mode, it's lethargic to kick down, and there's no way to manually select the higher gears.
Both Fords tackled our off-road sand-loop with aplomb. The 4x4 transfer case engaged high-and low-range settings quickly and easily, with the message center confirming the shift was in process. We're disappointed, however, that there's no on-pavement AWD option as offered by Dodge and General Motors.
Will the 2009 Ford F-150 be crowned the 2009 Motor Trend Truck of the Year? Find out Tues, December 16.
Photogragy by Brian Vance, Julia LaPalme, and William Walker
Pony Tail: Inside the Coolest Turn Signals Since the '60s
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Hey Washington Beltway bellyachers, check out this Detroit-Three innovation: Signal to turn in a new 2010 Mustang, and the tail lamps illuminate sequentially to point the way the car is turning, one-two-three from the inside to the outside. Oh, I know most of you are plenty old enough to remember the Thelma-n-Louise T-bird that launched this idea in 1965, and the '67 Mercury Cougar, '68 Shelby Mustang, and '69 Imperial that followed. But unlike those 1965-1968 versions, these involve no motors, rotating contacts, or moving parts to wear out. And get this, greenies: These new ones save fuel.
Okay, the sequential blinking doesn't save anything noticeable, but the LED lamps that are flashing (and serving tail-lamp and brake-light duty) consume 87 percent less power than the incandescent bulbs they replace. This helps save 10.5 gallons of gas per year in the typical Mustang, according to Osram, the folks who produce the system and that pioneered myriad other lighting innovations on earlier Ford/Lincoln-Mercury products. More good news: Unlike most LED signal and tail lamps you're aware of, which position an array of LEDs behind some sort of lens in a custom fitting for a particular car, the Mustang's LEDs work very much like a traditional incandescent bulb.
They're bulb-shaped, so they fit into a traditional lens and reflector housing with a push-and-turn base, drastically reducing the replacement cost of the tail lamp after crash damage (costing about half as much). They typically last the life of a vehicle and are unaffected by shock and vibration, so they're ideal in extreme applications (Pratt & Miller has used Joule lamps for three seasons of Corvette endurance racing without a failure).These so-called Joule lamps incorporate the LEDs, the thermal management (that ring sitting just behind the reflector housing), and the control circuitry (which resides in the connector).
Joule lamps cannot replace incandescent bulbs in existing applications (at least not yet), but this plug-n-play approach allows manufacturers to work LEDs into their product lines for vastly less investment cost than all those custom applications you see out there, which is why Chevy can afford to have an LED fitment on only the LTZ model of the Malibu. Joule lamps are also in use on the Ford Taurus X and the Mercury Mountaineer and Sable.
The Mustang's other Osram lighting flourish is found inside, where the MyColor dash gauge backlight color is now keyed with the rest of the interior ambient lighting, so that when you dial up ghoulish green or whorehouse red on the dash, the footwells, cupholders, etc. all glow with the flow.
