Ford dealers were able to get a sneak peek at the new Ford F-150 Raptor as it was being unveiled at the Ford Dealer Show in Las Vegas. Naturally they have given us a few details on what to expect and a small glimpse of what the new truck will look like.
Jim Farley – Ford’s marketing boss – debuted the Raptor – which sported a Ford embossed front grille. In order to show the kind of power it has they brought along a video of it tearing through the desert.
Ford has closed down the F-150 pickup truck plants in Dearborn, Michigan and Louisville, Kentucky due to ‘tepid demand’. Both plants will remain closed the rest of the year. The moves are part of Ford’s efforts to “align capacity with demand,” Ms. Gattari said.
The Dearborn plant will resume production at the start of the New Year, Ms. Gattari said. Workers are also scheduled to return to the Louisville factory just after New Year’s, a person familiar with the matter said. Ford, along with Detroit competitors General Motors Corp. and Chrysler LLC, has suffered sharp sales declines among its pickups and SUVs. F-Series pickups are off 12.4% through November, while Explorer sales have plunged 23.5%, according to Autodata Corp. Overall, Ford-brand light-duty truck sales, which include pickups and SUVs, have dropped 6.1%.
It was five years ago that Ford first brought up the concept of using Hydraulic Launch Assist (HLA) in some of the heavy duty trucks that they were looking to create. While we have seen some of those heavy duty trucks come to life we have yet to see Ford use HLA, until now.
The system uses a hydraulic pump/motor and high pressure accumulator to recapture kinetic energy when braking, which can then be released when the truck is accelerating to assist the engine. It’s a type of mild hybrid system really, though its effect is promised to be substantial.
Ford is teasing pickup lovers with an early glimpse of the face-lifted F-series trucks that make their debut this fall. The 2007 Ford F-150 FX2 is the latest in a series of special editions of the F-series, following such popular models as the Harley-Davidson and King Ranch trucks. On sale later this summer, the ‘07 FX2 is basically a trim package on an F-150 4×2 chassis, providing a monochromatic look with some interior flourishes, essentially a street-truck companion to the rugged FX4 off-road model.
The master cladders at Ford Motor Company have left almost everything to the imagination with the spy shots of the next-generation F-Series pickup that have been seen around town, which is expected to debut for the 2009 model year. But as the truck moves into final confirmation prototypes, a number of them were caught road testing, in three cab configurations. Spotted in Detroit have been standard short cab, extended cab, and four-door crew cab ’09 versions, suggesting Ford will be ready to rumble with a full lineup when the trucks launch next year.