Fromhumble beginnings to dominant force It’s no longer just farmers driving Ford pickups
The term“the only constant is change” might as well have been invented by the Ford Fseries pickup. It’s an icon of American culture, work ethic and roughand-tough play. For decades, Ford has been selling more pickups than any other company in North America. Not Dodge, not GMCand not Chevrolet (although you could make a case if you combined all of GM’s truck nameplates).
Trucks are as American as blue jeans, hamburgers, baseball and Mom’s apple pie.
Originally, they were built as a working-man’s vehicle and an absolute necessity for rural life. Nothing fancy, they were rugged workhorses, built to last.
Forget about comfort. Pickups weremade for prowling the “back 40” looking for stray cattle. They were made for hauling hay bales on dusty country roads and for fixing fences, just like you see in today’s TV commercials.
That all began to evolve with the growth of commuter cities and urbanization following the SecondWorldWar. Suddenly, it wasn’t just cowboys, construction workers and farmers who were driving pickups, but doctors and lawyers and city slickers.
Urban cowboys with new horses.
Once pickups began to appeal to a wider cross-section of the motoring public, it wasn’t long before manufacturers began applying car styling and comfort to them.
In Ford’s words, to make them “drive like a car— work like a truck.”
Today, pickup trucks are bigger, faster and certainly more luxurious. Most offer four doors and they’re as likely to be hauling family members as loads of drywall.
No one has been able to ride the winds of change— or change the direction they blow— better than Ford, which introduced its first factory-assembled pickup in 1925.
The first F-series truckmade its debut in 1948 as the F-1, the same year Ed Sullivan first appeared on a new gizmo called the TV.
It would become themost successful vehicle line inU.S. history and the only vehicle— car or truck— listedbyMoney magazine at the close of the 20th Century among the 99 things that America makes best.
The F-1 was followed by the F100 in 1953, marking the company’s 50th anniversary. The F-150 arrived 1984.
In 1995, the F-series became the most popular vehicle nameplate worldwide when it surpassed theVolkswagen Beetle in sales.
To keeps things fresh, aside from major platformchanges every decade or so, Ford has created specialty vehicles, such as theHarley-Davidson model and SVT (SpecialVehicle Team) Lightning and more recently the SVT Raptor off-roader.
What drives the F-150’s popularity today is that it can be built to suit just about any need or taste.
Thanks largely to Ford, themodern-day pickup has come of age andbeen transformed into a doanything-for-anyone vehicle. In fact, the combinations border on the infinite.
There are numerous cab arrangements, bed lengths and wheelbases. There are Flareside and Styleside boxes. There are turbochargedV-6, V-8 and turbo-diesel engines for more power and towing. And, of course there’s a choice of four-wheel-drive or rear drive, different axle ratios and heavy-duty hardware. And that’s not even getting into the trim levels. Name nearly any luxury option and it’s likely available for an F-150. In fact, the current 2018 F-150 “Limited” equipment list reads as though it came from a luxury car.
Performance and image come from the specialty trucks that Ford has a knack for producing, such as the cooler-than-cool SVT Raptor and a relationship with the King Ranch located in Texas, whichmeans a special luxurious, yet rough-and-tumble King Ranchmodel.
Where will the next F-series lead us? It seems hard to image considering the leaps and bounds the truck has made just for its most recent redesign.
From its humble beginnings as a work-only vehicle to becoming a dominant force on the automotive landscape, as long as the F series stays adaptable and in touch with American values, it can’t fail.
Malcolm Gunn is a feature writer withWheelbaseMedia. He canbe reached on theWeb at www.theoctanelounge.com by clicking the contact link.