It may have been more than 30 years since the phrase "where's the beef" was popular, but Ford is finally answering the question posed by a 1984 Wendy's ad with its newest line of Super Series Duty F-Series pickup trucks. Not only does the new truck bring the beef, it'll haul just about anything imaginable. It has a massive 6.7-liter turbo diesel engine to thank for that because this motor has an abundance of two things; displacement and torque.
The latter of the two is the engine's strong suit because it brings 925 lb-ft of torque and 440 horsepower of twist to the table, just in case anyone doubted Ford's dominance in the pickup truck segment. The result of this upgrade is a gooseneck towing capacity of 32,500 pounds on the F-450, an increase of fifth wheel towing capacity to 27,500 pounds, and a conventional towing allowance of 21,000 pounds. Even payload towing has gone up to 7,630 pounds, aided by a weight loss regime that cut 350 pounds by borrowing aluminum components from the F-150. To counter some of the claims made by the anti-aluminum camp (read: Chevy's latest unsuccessful ad campaign), Ford used an aluminum alloy that should better hold up against dents.
While the torque-laden diesel is available in trims as low as the F-250, that truck, along with the larger F-350, only carry a conventional towing capacity of 18,000 pounds. Since Americans seem to dislike diesel, there is also a 6.2-liter V8 available that drops horsepower to 385 horsepower and 430 lb-ft of torque. If you thought electronic safety gizmos only helped prevent supercar owners from crashing and becoming an Internet spectacle, you're wrong because Ford's heavy lifting champions also feature some gadgets to help drivers navigate fully loaded trucks carrying the weight of a house. In that arsenal is adaptive cruise control and collision warning that includes a brake support system for heavy trailers.
As cars gain additional cameras to help drivers navigate tight spaces, Ford felt its trucks needed the same, so it added an Ultimate Trailer Tow Camera system that adds one camera to each of the truck's four sides. There's also a trailer guidance system and cautious buyers can even opt for the trailer camera that can be placed on the towing object in question. Blind spot monitoring gains the ability to compensate for long trailers (up to 33 feet!) in tow by extending its range of sight to make sure that no unexpecting drivers get sideswiped. We'll learn about the fuel economy and pricing for the 6.7-liter diesel and 6.2-liter gasoline V8 when the two hit the market this fall, but don't expect the weight cut to help too much in this area.
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