Thanks 352 for the link.
JohnnyT, I saw that difference in the gear ratios. While it may give the Ford the advantage in these "contests", I wonder what it does to the fuel mileage, engine noise and fatigue factor when on mostly level road. I remember my dad dropping the gear ratio on his mid 80's F250 to 4:10, and it ended up limiting the top end to about 70 mph max. The 6.9 liter diesel in that truck would just run up against the governor, and so that's where we'd run it, hours at a time up against the governor. That wasn't the best situation. An over/under drive auxillary trans would've been better to allow a low range for pulling and a high range for flat hauling.
Re: who cares about 21 seconds faster up a hill? I agree it sounds a bit childish, but having driven a truck for a number of years as well as pulled a TT, I know that there is a lot of competition among guys with their rigs, and getting out pulled up a hill like that gives the guy that does it a lot of ammo for needling his buddies, or group of buddies, that he out-pulled; and you know that goes on all the time. So yeah, I think this can have a huge effect on the buying public. The guys that are in that market care a lot about having the best pulling power, about being the fastest to the top of the hill. That means a lot to a large percentage of the tow vehicle market.
That's not really my story, I mean look at my rig. I pull a 17' TT with a Ford Escape. I'm not the fastest up ANY hill, but I'm usually not the slowest either. My wife and I downsized to this rig and we're very happy with it. Though we've recently replaced the 2008 Escape with a 2013 model.
