Azernews.Az

By Bloomberg

Ford Motor Co.’s new aluminum-bodied F-150 pickup was dubbed one of the most audacious engineering projects in the automaker’s history by a Morgan Stanley analyst. Car magazine Motor Trend was less impressed, giving it third place in its Truck of the Year Award -- behind a mid-sized Chevy and Ford’s own delivery van.

The winner, General Motors Co.’s Chevrolet Colorado, is a fun truck for weekend warriors, Motor Trend editor Edward Loh said in an interview. Ford’s pickup may be the first of its kind, but the benefits of the lighter metal don’t show when driving the truck, he said.

“The advantages of going to aluminum didn’t really appear to us in testing.” Loh said.

The choice of a smaller pickup for the Truck of the Year Award is a testament to GM’s bold return to the mid-sized market it abandoned two years ago. The Colorado pickup offers better fuel economy than the larger trucks and is big enough for most buyers, Loh said.

“The Colorado is a very honest, right-sized pickup,” he said. “It’s also very handsome, which means a lot in that market.”

The F-150 didn’t even take second place, which went to the Ford Transit. The van has three different body styles and can be outfitted for cargo hauling with creature comforts inside.

“The van is insane,” Loh said. “It’s like the Transformer of vans and it drives really well.”

Although the F-150 is a fine truck, the aluminum body didn’t blow the judges away, Loh said. The fuel economy is only one or two miles per gallon better than the competing Ram and Chevrolet Silverado pickups.

Fuel Efficiency

Mike Levine, a Ford spokesman, said in a statement that “we always are honored to earn awards and recognition, we are most proud of creating the toughest, smartest and most capable F-150 ever for customers.”

Ford Chief Executive Officer Mark Fields has said that efficiency is the most important feature for buyers of the pickups. The Dearborn, Michigan-based carmaker started producing the new version of the F-150 in November after a makeover at its factories. Adam Jonas, a Morgan Stanley analyst, called the new truck “one of the most audacious engineering projects in Ford’s history” in a June report entitled “We expect a challenging truck changeover.”

If the only perceived improvement from the aluminum truck is fuel economy, car reviewers like Motor Trend can be underwhelmed, said Alexander Edwards, president of San Diego- based marketing consulting firm Strategic Vision.

“No one award is better than another,” Edwards said. “The one customers look to the most is Consumer Reports.”

Motor Trend’s 2014 Truck of the Year was Chrysler Group LLC’s Ram 1500.