Gadgetory

if there's any vehicle Ford cannot afford to screw up its the f-150 not the Mustang not the fusion this guy this is the sales champ and it's a critical high profit product as well but they've pushed it forward into a lot of high-tech dimensions that are going to require a little bit of accommodation if you will by the truck buyer but I like it because they're all going high-tech let's take a look the biggest story is the technology of materials they pulled some 700 pounds out of the weight of the f-150 much of it by having an aluminum body just about everything you see on the outside of the vehicle is now aluminum that's a big change for the truck market the other third or so comes out of high-strength steel being used in the latter frame which is tougher lighter but less sort of bulky as the steel goes but there's still steel underneath this guy this is gonna make for a very different animal when you go to the body shop as well body shops are still trying to get their heads wrapped around with the idea of aluminum repair now when you take 700 pounds out of your vehicle you get to do some interesting things with how you power it including this headline grabber a 2.7 liter v6 ecoboost that means direct injection and turbo charging this is seen as heresy by some in the truck world where anything below a v8 is seen as just not enough to move a proper truck but this is a small displacement v6 on top of just having too fewer cylinders than tradition what we're seeing here is an engine that is yet to have its horsepower or economy specified that will come later as Ford gets closer to late 2014 release but notice this guy's got standard auto start/stop technology that's also interesting in a full-size pickup although it's defeatable readily in all-wheel-drive mode or at any time because truck demands can be so different than regular car and also carrying on over three and a half liter v6 that's actually the base engine the current engine and a five liter v8 the 6.2 liter v8 bye-bye inside lots of chunky controls it's still very truck like in here for the first time ever they'll offer 360 around view cameras front back there's one of the tailgate there and one underneath each mirror that's really nice in a truck when you are often trying to get very near things for loading going between tight spaces and a big V things like that you can get LED headlights optionally I think that's unique in this category lots of LED lighting around the vehicle in general and if you want it there's a panoramic sunroof option which is a little odd in a cabin that is not all that huge compared to a car but it's there now of course as usual the f-150 will come in lots of trim levels and many of what I've shown you are actually optional technologies so if you feel like a truck needs to be simple dumb and rugged that'll be available as well but it's clear the American truck market is not just about being all-american high horsepower and having big payload and towing capacity it's about being smarter as well