A truck with 10 cup holders and the capacity to tow 32,500 pounds will be on the market this fall.
Ford Motor Co. revealed its 2017 F-series Super Duty trucks this week in Denver, where trucks are the fastest-growing market segment, sales operations manager Mike Grammes said. The Front Range’s truck industry is up 10 percent over last year. The overall industry, which includes cars, trucks and SUVs, is down 1 percent, though itap still riding the eight-year high.
“I think itap just largely due to the economy,” he said. Gas prices are “really the thing that has driven the SUV and the truck business, because people moved away from cars because gas prices are low. Thatap a huge factor in the mix of vehicles being sold.”
The Super Duty redesign is its first since the series was launched for the 1999 model year. And it’s been expensive. The Dearborn, Mich.-based company’s shares fell 8.2 percent Thursday to $12.71 per share after it reported second-quarter earnings that were below expectations. The relaunch is one of the company’s costly worries. Ford also is expecting to take a $145 million hit to sales in Britain because of the U.K. vote to leave the European Union.
The automaker’s shares fell $1.13, or 8.2 percent, to finish at $12.71 Thursday.
The Super Duty redesign started with the truck’s frame, which is 24 times stiffer than before, product communications manager Mike Levine said. The aluminum alloy body is tougher and up to 350 pounds lighter than the outgoing steel body.
Added technology includes adaptive cruise control, which keeps a constant distance between you and the vehicle in front of you. If traffic slows, the truck will slow with it. The trucks are also equipped with adaptive steering, 360-degree camera systems, lane-keeping assist and blind spot monitoring.
And yes, the cup holders got an upgrade. The convertible cup holder space in the center console — the patented “dynamic beverage management” system — doubles the cup-holding capacity to four.
The F-series’ purpose is to tow, truck group marketing manager Doug Scott said. For personal-use consumers, that means those transporting horses, snowmobiles, boats, RVs or even those “tiny houses.” But half of trucks are sold for work, he said.
“We do index a little higher here on trucks than in other parts of the country,” Grammes said. Thatap in part because people want four-wheel drive and the ability to tow “full trailers, horse trailers and campers,” he said.
About 17 million new vehicles will be sold across the U.S. this year, Scott said. Full-size pickups comprise about 12 percent of that total. Of those 2 million pickups, about 800,000 -— or 40 percent — will carry the Ford brand, Scott said.
The F-250 pickup starts at $32,500. On the series’ highest end is the F-450 Platinum, at $77,000. If you’re willing to shell out the extra cash, you can even get it with massaging seats.
