DETROIT - Ford Motor's most important model, the F-150 pickup truck, finally gets a public showing here today, becoming the first big pickup made of aluminum, body and frame, as Ford sheds 700 pounds from a typical F-150 in the quest to save fuel.
The 2015 F-150, on sale this fall, also gets two new engines, major styling revisions, a plateful of technical updates and a marketing message that this isn't beer-can aluminum; it's military Humvee aluminum.
It'll be harder for a heavy load to dent the bed than in the steel predecessor and harder for a shopping cart to ding the door in a parking lot, Ford swears.
"All-new from the ground up," says Pete Reyes, the truck's chief engineer. "High-strength aluminum alloy for the front end, all the cab, the box, tailgate and the frame, which is bigger, wider, stronger, but 70 pounds lighter."
Ford won't say how much more it costs to build the aluminum 2015 F-150 than a similar steel model, nor will it telegraph prices.
"We'll maintain a level of (price) competitiveness that we need to," Joe Hinrichs, Ford Motor executive vice president, and president of its North and South American operations, said in an interview.
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Ford F-150 makes jump to aluminum body, frame
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