But, as if that's not enough, Ford devised another evil plot to make the truck prove its worth. An F-150 EcoBoost was forced to race again, chased by no one, on the Homestead-Miami Speedway. Towing a trailer on which a pair of NASCAR Sprint Cup Ford Fusions (weighing 3,450 pounds/1,565 kg each) were enjoying the ride without a single turn of the wheel, the truck had to circle the track for no less than 24 hours.
It managed to complete the course, after traveling 1,606 miles/2,585km at an average speed of 82 mph (132 km/h). It stopped, from time to time, to change some of its weakest elements: the tires and the driver. And for fuel, of course.
“The engine and the truck performed flawlessly,” Eric Kuehn, chief engineer of the 2011 Ford F-150 justifies the carmaker's need for such cruelty. “These demonstrations reinforce that every engine we put under the hood of a Ford F-Series has to pass all of our Built Ford Tough testing – and pass it readily.”
And, if you don't know already, here's what made this possible: the EcoBoost engine, with its 365 horsepower at 5,000 rpm and 420 lb.-ft. (570 Nm) of torque at 2,500 rpm. On sale next year in the US, by the way.
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