North American Truck of the Year

hone eagle wrote:

geotex1 wrote:
Being an engineer, I applaud innovation but I'm also very critical in that the essence of good engineering is to design by/to function. I'm not convinced Ford had that in mind for a working truck, but to be fair the actual percentage of truck buys who buy trucks to have something in the bed a handful of times a year has risen exponentially... Don't need much truck to haul groceries and hockey equipment. Repairs to that aluminum body are going to be expensive every way around. The insurance companies are not keen on them - I know this to be fact. Will be interesting to see how it ultimately proves out.

Nothing innovative at all ,Aluminum has been around in automotive bodies forever in whole or parts.
Insurance companies could care less they will charge what ever extra it will cost to repair and so far it seems to be between $100 and $200 a year,each individual will make their own decision.
To me the never rust is a major plus,and yes I know al oxidizes.

Nothing innovative, huh?

You have no clue...

In terms of using aluminum in a vehicle? Ok, I'll give you that one. But using all aluminum bodies on three quarters of a million vehicles a year? Nobody does that (yet). Just the manufacturing and assembly of the body alone took an 8 billion dollar investment in infrastructure, equipment, and new technology. The entire manufacturing process of the aluminum body is an utterly amazing feat, and to be able to do it on the scale Ford is required significant investment from the raw materials suppliers too... 5 years ago, nobody could have done it because nobody could pedicure the amount of aluminum needed to make that many vehicles. Ford essentially owns all the output currently available from the aluminum industry to sort the f150 and super duty for the foreseeable future. It'll be interested to see the commodities cost for GM if they jump on the aluminum bandwagon too.