Detroit Auto Show: Makeover Of The Ford F Series Pickup
DETROIT, Jan 5, 2003; Tom Brown writing for Reuters reports that Ford Motor Co. isn't exactly putting all its eggs in one basket, but there are an awful lot of them riding in the back of its big F-150 pickup truck.
An all-new version of the F-Series, which has been America's best-selling vehicle for 21 years, was due to make its public debut on Monday at Detroit's international auto show.
And officials at the embattled company, which has said its turnaround efforts hinge on exciting new products, are clearly hoping the full-sized truck will continue accounting for nearly one-fourth of Ford's U.S. sales in the future.
Underscoring its importance, Ford Chairman and Chief Executive Bill Ford Jr. heralded the truck as "the most successful vehicle in the history of automobiles" during a recent media preview.
"Nothing has been more central to our success or more important to us than the F-Series," Ford said.
It has been seven years since the last launch of a redesigned version of the F-150, and the company acknowledges that the fast-growing U.S. pickup market has changed significantly since then.
To reinvent the industry leader, a process Ford has likened to that of an Olympic athlete training to shatter previous records, the company pulled out all the stops to ensure that the V8-powered vehicle looks tougher than ever, while also offering more room and towing capacity and best-in-class levels of interior comfort.
"You don't have any trouble identifying the Ford tough DNA," said J Mays, Ford's design director.
Auto enthusiasts could spend hours cataloging all the changes Ford has made in the F-150, from its chassis and steering system to bigger passenger and interior storage compartments.
Perhaps most interesting, from a marketing standpoint however, is the fact that the truck will offer the industry's widest variety of body and trim configurations, with five different F-150 packages featuring three different box lengths and two distinct box styles. All will come with four doors, of one size or another.
COMPETITIVE EDGE?
Even the base model regular cab version of the truck, which is due to go on sale next summer, features 13 inches of secure storage space behind the front seat, meanwhile. And that alone could give the F-150 a big competitive edge over the standard pickup offerings from General Motors Corp. and other rivals.
"I think it will do extremely well," industry analyst Scott Hill of Sanford C. Bernstein in New York said of the new F-Series. "It will be a very capable vehicle."
Michael Robinet of CSM Worldwide, a Michigan-based automotive forecast service, agreed with that favorable impression overall and said Ford was on track to "set a new standard for interiors for pickup trucks."
Robinet said Ford faces stiff competition in the profitable segment from GM and the Chrysler side of DaimlerChrysler AG , along with new players like Toyota Motor Corp. (Tokyo:7203.T - News) and Nissan Motor Co. Ltd. (Tokyo:7201.T - News), however. And he stressed that it may not be doing enough to rein in manufacturing costs on redesigned vehicles.
"What's worrisome is how much cost they've added," Robinet said of the revamped F-150. "I think it could be a repeat in many respects of the Expedition and Navigator, in the sense that they've added a significant amount of cost and weren't able to pull it out of some other area," he said.
New and improved Expedition and Navigator full-size sport utilities were launched by Ford last year and analysts said both vehicles, though well received by consumers, cost too much to build.
The new F-150 is heavier than its predecessor, which means it may be even more gas-thirsty. And some analysts estimate it will cost about $1,000 more per truck to build. That adds up to roughly $800 million per year, given the volumes of the F-Series which has sold in excess of 800,000 units annually for the past five years.