Ford has divulged that it delivered six F-150 pickups to three fleet customers beginning in 2011 without telling them that the trucks’ beds were made from aluminum. The idea, of course, was to test the planned switch to the lightweight metal for the 2015 F-150
The three companies knew they were getting prototype trucks, says Ford spokesman Mike Levine, but the automaker didn’t divulge how the trucks differed from those in showrooms. (Ford also hid the aluminum F-150 in plain view when it raced in the 2013 Baja 1000; you can read about that act of deception here.)
“We wanted to test the truck outside, in the harshest conditions and in the hands of real customers, with no limits,” Ford stated in a release. “So when we gave them the prototype vehicles, we told them to use the trucks like their other . . . trucks, and we would be back to follow their progress.”
The 2011 model F-150 trucks were built with standard steel cabs and fitted with prototype aluminum cargo beds stamped to look identical to the steel 2011 units. The beds were painted, but were left unprotected otherwise. The trucks were then loaned to Barrick Gold Corporation, a Nevada mining company; Walsh Construction, which put them to use at a hydroelectric dam in Pennsylvania and a freeway interchange project in Alabama; and a North Carolina utility company that assigned the trucks to crews that frequently ventured up mountain roads and off-road to replace and maintain utility poles and read meters. Ford checked on the trucks every three months to see how they were holding up and glean feedback from the customers.
The fleet operators noticed that the beds didn’t rust when the paint was scratched through. According to Levine, they also saw no cracking of the bed floors and observed that the bed mounts didn’t break, as sometimes happened with the steel beds, particularly at the gold mine. They also couldn’t stick magnets to the beds.
- 10 Things You Didn’t Know About the 2015 Ford F-150
- 5 Cool Ways Ford Stripped Weight from the 2015 F-150’s Chassis
- Ford F-150 Research: Pricing, Specs, News, Reviews, and More
As a result of these tests, Ford says it made the floor thicker and it modified the tailgate design to make them more durable for the 2015 F-150. The prototype trucks are still in use at the three companies, who were finally clued in to the secret at the 2015 F-150 reveal at January’s Detroit auto show. Kind of gives new meaning to the term “embedded,” doesn’t it?
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