In the heavy-duty truck segment, the Ford Motor Company is in a league of its own with the F-Series Super Duty. Introduced back in September 2022, this generation of the Super Duty has received the highly coveted North American Truck of the Year award.
The 2024 North American Car, Truck and Utility Vehicle of the Year awards kicked off in July 2023 with an initial list of 52 candidates spread across the car, truck, and utility vehicle segments. In terms of trucks, the initial candidates were the Chevrolet Silverado EV, Tesla Cybertruck, Ford Ranger, Ford F-Series Super Duty, Chevrolet Colorado, GMC Canyon, and the newly redesigned Toyota Tacoma.
In September 2023, during the Detroit Auto Show, the list was trimmed down to 25 vehicles. For the 2024 North American Truck of the Year award, the candidates were the Colorado and technically similar Canyon, along with the Ford Ranger, Super Duty, and the overly expensive Chevrolet Silverado EV. Nine finalists were chosen in November 2023, leaving the Super Duty to duke it out with two GM pickup trucks in the form of the Colorado and the Silverado EV.
Why did the fifty jurors pick the Super Duty over the midsizer and all-electric workhorse from General Motors? According to Mark Phelan of the Detroit Free Press, because it's both "a workhorse and a show horse." Jack R. Nerad of J.D. Power, TrueCar, and U.S. News touched upon the heavy-duty pickup truck's "impressive towing, payload, torque, and horsepower figures," which are best in segment.
The F-450 offers a whopping 40,000 pounds (18,143 kilograms in the metric system) of maximum available gooseneck towing capacity, whereas payload tops 8,000 pounds (3,629 kilograms) for the F-350 dual-rear-wheel 4X2 Regular Cab XL with the Heavy-Duty Payload Package and 7.3-liter gasser.
Photo: Ford
Regarding peak torque and power, the most impressive engine of the bunch is the high-output version of the 6.7-liter Power Stroke turbo diesel. Building on the regular Power Stroke with an upgraded turbo, exhaust manifolds, and new mapping for the engine control unit, the high-output version makes a stout 500 horsepower and 1,200 pound-feet (1,627 Nm). By comparison, the high-output Cummins inline-six turbo diesel in the Ram HD belts out 420 ponies and 1,075 pound-feet (1,458 Nm).
Unfortunately, Silverado fans won't like hearing that GM's Duramax V8 is lagging behind in terms of peak torque with 975 pound-feet (1,322 Nm) to its name. Be that as it may, General Motors has the upper hand in terms of pricing. At the moment of reporting, the 2024 Chevrolet Silverado HD starts at $43,400 versus $44,970 for the 2024 model year Ford Super Duty and a staggering $47,740 for the 2024 Ram 2500.
Mere days before 2023 turned into 2024, the Ford Motor Company waxed lyrical about the F-Series being America's favorite pickup truck for the 47th year running. Ford originally said that it had moved over 700,000 units in 2023 in the United States. The actual number is 750,789 pickup trucks compared to 555,148 for the 'Rado and 295,737 for the Sierra.
Otherwise put, GM's full-size twins clocked 850,885 deliveries in the United States in 2023. As for the Ram pickup truck, which is referred to as P/U in Stellantis vernacular, that would be 444,926 units.
After a 1:43 scale model of a Ferrari 250 GTO sparked Mircea's interest for cars when he was a kid, an early internship at Top Gear sealed his career path. He's most interested in muscle cars and American trucks, but he takes a passing interest in quirky kei cars as well. Full profile
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