Automotive | All About Automotive

Over the last few years, sales of pickups for personal use have dropped dramatically. It's been a long, slow road to recovery in this country, and we still haven't seen truck sales improve. Making things worse, guys who work in construction are among the most dedicated to buying pickups for use on the job, and there isn't a lot of that going on right now, either.

How did truckmakers respond to this sudden, dramatic, and prolonged change in the marketplace? Instead of sticking solely with the mainstream-market formula, they're focusing on catering to the specific needs of truck people. That helps explain the interesting grouping of vehicles for the latest Truck of the Year event. Four qualified: the Ford F-150 SVT Raptor, the Ford Transit Connect, the Ram Heavy Duty, and the Toyota Tundra 4.6-liter work truck.

First contender is the off-road race-ready Ford F-150 SVT Raptor. Instead of taking the street-biased high-performance route of the Lightning, the design team looked at the strengths of the truck platform and redefined the idea of high performance. The Raptor is ideally suited to romping over the ruts and sand of the Baja 1000 and only gets better the faster you go. And even though the extended-cab powered by a 5.4-liter V-8 is an impressive combination, we hear a crew cab and 400-plus-horsepower, 6.2-liter V-8 are coming.

2010 Dodge Ram 2500 Heavy Duty Front Three Quarters Driver
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Some of you may wonder why on earth there's a little van in Truck of the Year. The Ford Transit Connect is no kid-toting minivan. This is a van built for work, with a 1600-pound payload, comparable to that of any half-ton truck on the market. This van, which has been sold in Europe for many years, has been put through truck-durability testing and is ready to take on full-size vans for a piece of that market.

For those who need to be able to tow a fifth-wheel trailer or carry 5000 pounds of equipment in the bed, the Ram Heavy Duty arrives for 2010 with a revised platform, all-new sheetmetal, redesigned interior, and several innovations. These trucks are available as 3/4- and one-ton models, plus 4500 and 5500 trucks for even more capability.

Despite the effects of the Great Recession on personal-use truck sales, there is still demand for pickups ready to do hard work. The heavy-duty truck market has gotten smaller, but the guys who buy those pickups are fiercely loyal to the segment-they need the extreme capability these hard-working haulers provide. Some may wonder why anyone would own a truck that can tow nearly 20,000 pounds, but for a lot of people in construction, those who transport vehicles or goods, and those with ranches, this is just a part of everyday life.

2010 Ram 2500 Heavy Duty Rear Three Quarters Static
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Within the next few months, the heavy-duty category will heat up, as all three manufacturers have all-new offerings coming. The Ram Heavy Duty is the first to market, and it's already ahead of the game. When Ford and GM's all-new heavy-dutys come out, both new diesel engines are going to require urea injection to meet emissions requirements that take effect January 2010. The Ram Heavy Duty's Cummins inline-six turbodiesel, which puts out an impressive 350 horsepower and 650 pound-feet of torque, met those requirements -- without urea -- over a year ago.

Instead, the Ram 2500 and 3500 use a NOx adsorber with precious metals that convert the NOx into inert gases. Not only does this mean the Ram's emissions and exhaust systems are less complex than those in the upcoming Ford Super Duty and Silverado/Sierra HD (which could improve reliability and help keep maintenance costs down), it also means that, at the dealership, the Ram will very likely have a price advantage over its competitors. And while in this size category diesel is king, there are plenty of heavy-duty truck buyers who prefer gas power. The 5.7-liter Hemi, the Ram's base engine, has the most horsepower (383) and torque (400 pound-feet) of any V-8 in its class -- and only the Ford Super Duty's V-10 has more torque than the Hemi, but it still has less horsepower.

This is it. Crunch time. The 2009 Ford F-150 and Dodge Ram are rolling onto the market like a pair of gigantic craps dice, and the companies tossing them are each betting big on this game. Unfortunately, the rules changed while these dice were in mid-air. Fuel prices skyrocketed, the economy tanked, consumer confidence evaporated, and folks who once chose half-ton pickups more for their Marlboro-Man-image-enhancing qualities than for their towing or hauling capabilities are shopping elsewhere.

Ford claims it sells more of its 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 truck'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. The ride doesn't quite match Dodge's, but the chassis engineers managed to tune the steering for pleasing heft and remarkable accuracy that had many judges lauding the F-150s for feeling smaller and nimbler than their Dodge counterparts. 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.