Here’s a quick look at the 2018 Ford F-150, which is the only half-ton truck that has a V6 as its Top Gun engine, as well as an aluminum skin job. Big news for 2018 is upticked power across the board – and a new (well, coming) turbodiesel V6.
PS: I’ll be on-air with Bryan Hyde tomorrow at 3 p.m. eastern. As always, the audio will be on site later in the day.
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Having operated big rigs for 50 years I don’t have a big gripe with aluminum cabs per se, but aluminum beds is another matter. Yesterday working on a well the bed had to take various heavy things being thrown into it such as soon old Rigid 36 and 24 inch pipe wrenches, probably not a big deal for aluminum either but how thick and what sort of alloy do you need using aluminum to not get dented.
Driving through the pasture(huh?….say many pickup owners nowadays)I heard a big Thump, an almost completely hidden mesquite limb I ran over coming up and slapping the body or bed, didn’t make much difference since it probably only rubbed the paint.
Are we to the point we only use pickups for princess fairy use? Not in my part of the woods. Of course pickups here often have the original bed in the barn or sold to somebody who had a wreck and needed another.
I don’t like work beds for the most part simply because of no sides above the floor but every year I see more in use and my next pickup might have one with their integrated toolboxes.
I’d hate to think I’ll have to have one just for dents.
Aluminum cab, steel bed? Common among larger trucks. Will the typical half ton be reduced to this…..and its inherent cost? Will we see half ton pickups sold without beds like one tons? Everything with bed liners? My 82 Chevy has a galvanized bed floor. Looks like it won’t ever go away and it’s had a hard life.
I can’t fathom this 4 foot bed bullshit. I call this a Ford F-150 Brat, it’s just missing the rear facing seats in the bed! This is about as useless for utility purposes as the 1st generation Bronco with the open back interior. This crap is for “tailgaitin’ at the football game with yuppies”. Now there’s a word that’s just as exticnt as the Station Wagon, and they were the reason for that too. The SW was the working-man’s family transporter. But we don’t have much of a production/working man society anymore. The “information age” has also heralded the “leisure-truck age”. The bottom line, automobiles are becoming useless, and it is merely a reflection of the useless people of this society. Pretty harsh assessment, but that’s what we have.
I’d say that you’re right on the money, GTC. In every respect.
Heck, station wagons were more useful than these truck-like objects.
Their argument against Station Wagons and Mini Vans “They don’t look Cool”, My argument “They get the shit done better than anything new”. Their reply…..”Ipay somebody else to do that kind of work”, my response…”you mean work like moving your own shit?” That just shows that those who don’t want to work don’t want a vehicle that’s of any use. After my father passed away, I kept his farem tractor and implements at my house where I put them to good use. When I asked my siblings if they had any need of it, they said no. In response, my narcissist brother summed up his own laziness by adding “with the tools go the job”…..just his way of saying that as long as he didn’t own anything useful, he wouldn’t be expected to do any work. He priudes himself on never having to do any work for himself, and this includes moving his own shit when he moves……..he would always get out parents to do it for him….even when they were in their 70’s, and he was 30 years younger! The only one in the family with a PHD, and he isn’t worth a flying fuck for carrying his own weight!
This is what 75% of our society amounts to…..people with their heads so far up their own ass they don’t even want to even consider owning something that might require them to do any actual work! But, who do they call when they need their shit taken care of? That’s right, the 25% of us who actually accomplish shit, and take the responsibility to own and maintain useful vehicles, instead of fashion-mobiles! That’s just one reason I do not help people who come into my shop and refuse to make an effort to leave their vehicle for service.
A: The world doesn’t revolve around me, you, or your “need” for instant gratification.
B: Your lack of planning is not everyone else’s emergency.
C: If shit isn’t going your way, refer to A and B
Wow, GTC, their way of thinking is just so totally opposite of ours…and of what used to be that of 99% of men…
I consider self-sufficiency a virtue. If I have to ask someone else/hire someone else to do something, I feel like I’ve “lost”.
I’m kind of a minimalist; don’t want or need a bunch of stuff; have no interest in the latest gadget. But TOOLS are essential! Tools/equipment to get the job done, and tools to maintain and repair those tools- I mean really, such essentially determines if you’re independent or just a cog in the giant collective (and most cogs in the collective are looking to have somebody else do the work, as you so rightly point out.)
The one bad thing about having a real pick-up, is that people tend to ask ya to help them move. I don’t worry about that though- as I don’t really have any local friends, and all of my friends have their own real pick-ups! Plus, ya can always say “No”, right?)
But I’ll just never understand this “Get someone else to do it” attitude. How can a MAN be like that? Heck, I figure out ways to do 2, 3, or 4-man jobs single-handedly- like installing a new liner in my 27′ above-ground pool…
…or the time when my mother lived in an apartment, and had to bring her an old solid wood armoire. Got it out of it’s old digs, into my truck, into my mother’s place, and up her stairs, including a 90* bend, into the upstairs bedroom.
When she moved on to my land AND HIRED SOMEONE TO move her [I’ll never let her live that down!!] it took 3 of the Bozos to get the armoire down the stairs and out.
It makes me sick. My nephews are like that. Grown men who are good for nothing. Can’t even do a simple brake job on their cars. No reason they can’t learn…they just don’t want to. Just wait till they hear the brakes grinding, and then pay someone $600 to do it…put it on the credit card, of course, ’cause they couldn’t come up with $600 cash if their life depended on it. I don’t bother with them. They make me sick. I’d just as soon shoot them as say hello to them!
The reason they are like this is because being a man the way we are is obsolete given the way most people live today. They are all helpless ‘call someone’ types. Because women can call someone they don’t respect men who can do for themselves. Occasionally you see one dangle the possibility of sex to get something done because she’s broke but that’s about as far as it goes. There’s only two things that ultimately drive men, their internal self and sexual selection. Modern conditioning does away with the former.
I can’t even conceive of how a woman could be with some tool who can’t even use tools. And how does a man maintain any self-respect when he’s just as helpless as a woman when it comes to fixing/building/accomplishing anything, and must in-turn, just like the woman, call in a man to do the job?
gtc I hear you. This last go – round in the patch had pipeline companies, for the most part, buying those useless Platinum(resale value no doubt )half ton pickups for the “useless ” crowd. I could never quite figure out the justification of these no nothing jobs.
They were worthless paper pushers who merely stood around and watched others work. It’s this part of the patch that makes me know there is plenty “gimme” jobs for mostly the college or those that would have you think college with a 2 year degree, one of those “qualifications” people like myself and probably others I won’t mention wondering who they blew.
Never the less, these were the useless crowd driving their 4.6 foot crew (sic)cab bed pickups, the very same bunch who’d have a flat just from driving those worthless 20 inch tires more suited to a sports car, who would simply leave that “truck” sitting in the middle of the road til some hard working “muchacho” could be dispatched to change a white boy’s, and I do mean “boy”, tire.
The actual workers used real crew cab Chevy and Dodge long beds for real work. These Mostly GM, pickups were the ones getting pounded every day.
Myself being one of the real workers, interacted with this type. It was a joke watching the androgynous crowd with their pickups that might have a crossover toolbox that took half the bed and a “Yeti” cooler that took the other half.
These “boys” would have been better suited to an El Dorado or the ubiquitous pink Cadillac.
I have spent my life using pickups as work trucks. When playing I’d use anything but a pickup.
That included El Camino’s Wagoneer’s and big GM cars that would tow trailers and boats. I tried using some big Ford and Plymouth’s but the reliability issue always asserted itself and car wise you’d mostly end up with Oldsmobiles.
The big Buick’s worked fairly well but reliability would be an issue. We all liked Caddy’s but they’d eat you alive on various bullshit parts replacement. Caddy’s had parts to replace other cars didn’t even have just like the big Tbird’s and Lincoln’s,both of which were fine when they weren’t eating parts which wasn’t often.
And a lifetime of this has formulated my disdain for Ford and Chrysler.
Call me biased, I am. I like to get home from trips hauling trailers without having a breakdown. It’s just so nice to take a trip and only buy gas.
One of my favorite long trip cars was a 429 T Bird but it made few trips without some repair.
OTOH, those Oldsmobiles just went with no fanfare.
I liked Caddy’s too and nearly bought an almost new one but the test drive brought the foibles to front. I eventually tromped it and it gave up a freeze plug. Can you say leaking head gasket? I’m sure the freeze plug was replaced and it was sold to somebody who didn’t stick their foot in it.
Buyer beware……and be aware of the foibles of each brand, something very hard to do these days.
I grew up tagging along with by dad in some oil fields in PA in the early and mid ’70’s. Bad roads and mud 8 months of the year. One of the guys that worked with us drove his 71 Cutlass 350 w/posi rear, everywhere the trucks went, as long as he had body clearance, never got stuck, even when some of the 4wd pickups did. Olds should have been making the trucks, they used to be indestructible. Their wagons were far better than the crappy Ford “country squire”, that was for rich pansies to pull their “show horse” trailers, not cargo.
GTC, back in the 80’s, my sister had a c, ’69 Vista Cruiser….. That wagon was AMAZING! Fast, reliable, indestructible…. Felt much more masculine than these modern soccer-mom mobiles and sissified non-pick-ups! That had to be the ultimate wagon. Heck, the ultimate car!
AHAhaha! I’m normal! 5’10” on the nose!
Sheesh…how
longshort is that bed?!