What Americans call ‘Trucks’ are big business for the auto industry out here and they don't get much bigger than the famous Ford F150.
What Americans call ‘Trucks’ are big business for the auto industry out here and they don't get much bigger than the famous Ford F150.
As much as we might complain about the size of late SUV’s on Indian roads, these vehicles pale in comparison to these monsters you see in America. Take the newly launched Jeep Grand Cherokee, in the US it looks positively puny in comparison to vehicles such as the Cadillac Escalade. And then there are what Americans call ‘Trucks’, now these are not trucks as you and I know trucks in India, these are large personal vehicles, almost always with a flat-bed to haul your things around, you might have seen the Tata Xenon and Mahindra Getaway, well these are similar, just twice as big.
And these were basic, like most American vehicles always were. Simply put together and easily repaired. luxury was never the American way. But those days are gone, and that is quite evident in the 2017 Ford F150 King Ranch that I recently had a chance to drive on the Ford test track in Dearborn, Michigan. The F150 is by far and away Ford's best-selling vehicle, by some estimates one F150 is sold every thirty seconds. Despite competitors like the Dodge Ram, Chevrolet Silverado and now the Toyota Tundra, the F150 continues to rule the roost. And like all vehicles the F150 has continued to grow.
These are some of the headline numbers. The F150 is 6.19 meters long, that is more than twenty feet long. With its (admittedly huge) mirrors out, the car is over eight feet wide. The 4x4 version with the twin-cab weighs over 2.2 tons; but with the mammoth 3.5-litre V6 EcoBoost engine that produces 365 horsepower and vitally 450 pounds-foot of torque - which 610 Newton-meters for those of you guys who love metric figures, this monster can two two monsters, with a towing capacity of five tons.
let me compare those figures with what we would call a large car in India, Ford’s own Endeavor. Which is four feet shorter, a foot thinner and over two hundred kilograms lighter for the top 4x4 model with the 3.2 engine. And as much as I like the Endeavor, albeit with the smaller engine and two-wheel drive (will you ever take an SUV out to the countryIJ) as I was to discover the F150 is far more fun to drive as well.
Yet, do not for one second think that this is an unrefined lump of meat, this isn’t a redneck wagon. Hell no. Far from it, the latest iteration of the F150 has Ford’s most advanced gearbox yet, possibly one of the most advanced gearboxes in the world - with ten forward speeds. That is no typo, this car has ten forward speeds. And that is what we drove at Ford’s high-speed test-track outside their headquarters in Dearborn, Michigan.
The version we drove was the luxurious ‘King ranch’ version, which is kitted out in acres of embossed leather and wood, a state-of-the-art Sony infortainment system that would not be out of place in a German luxury car. The interiors of the car has the feel of a large wooden cabin in the American countryside, which is what Ford was trying to achieve one figures.
But that was not it, Ford wanted a whole posse of journalists to try out the new F150 at the high-speed test track for a reason. This behemoth can move at a considerable rate of knots thanks to this new gearbox, to demonstrate that to us on the high-speed track Ford engineers had put ‘Stop’ signs at strategic points, these showcased not only how quickly the new F150 went from a stand start up to the highway speed limit in the US of 70 miles per hour (around 120 kilometers per hour) and beyond but also how the car used the gearbox to achieve some engine braking as well.
And the car is surprisingly easy to drive, yes, you know that you command the roads but the F150 does not feel out of place on the track. The steering is light, the gear-changes are smooth and you can even manually shift gears - useful not so much for the track but more for country and hilly roads where you might need to hold a gear. In the early days, the first F150’s in the late-1950’s had a crude three-speed automatic gearbox, but you really appreciate modern technology. This huge beast is also economical by American truck standards, albeit it would probably give an Indian small car owner a heart attack. That said, petrol costs half of what it does in India out here.
Sure, this is no Mustang, it isn’t supposed to set the roads alight. But it can really get a move on when it needs to. This might look like a Diplodocus in a world of small raptors, but this can give the raptors a run for their money. Vehicles like the F150 work in a huge country like the United States with large expanses of rural roads and where ranches and farms can often expand as far as the eye can see.
Clearly, something like this can only be made for the US and Canada where you need such monstrous vehicles propelled by big-petrol engines to go anywhere. But you know what, I drove a lot of cars at this Ford track day, the utterly maniacal Focus RS and the new Fusion (which is an amazing car), but it was the F150 that left a smile on my face.