Ford is forced to temporarily cut production at two plants in the United States that make the profitable 2021 Ford F-150 full-size pickup because of the global shortage of semiconductor chips. We will be watching to see if General Motors, which is keeping its truck and full-size SUV plants going while cutting production elsewhere to weather a shortage that began impacting the industry late last year, can gain a truck sales lead—even temporarily.
Ford’s F-Series has been the best-selling truck in the U.S. for the past 44 years. GM has been able to claim supremacy when it combines sales of the Chevrolet Silverado and the GMC Sierra, but Chevy alone has not been able to take the crown. Also in the hunt is the Ram 1500.
Bragging rights aside, the F-150 pickup truck is Ford’s bread and butter. Buyers are many and they are loyal. Ford keeps improving the profitable truck—the 2021 Ford F-150 is [...]
The new Nissan Frontier is finally here. Even though it rides on the old model’s underpinnings, it benefits from a thorough makeover that was so long overdue we’re just happy Nissan finally got around to it. Among all the Fronty’s newness, a surprise stood out: A new Pro-X trim level, a two-wheel-drive, off-road-focused model spun off the continued Pro-4X 4×4 iteration. Such two-wheel-drive, butched-up models used to be more of a “thing” in the ’90s, but they’re making a comeback, most notably with Ford’s introduction of the Ranger FX2 package. Seeing how it is a natural foe for Nissan’s Frontier Pro-X, let’s see how the two stack up.
Frontier Pro-X vs. Ranger FX2: The BasicsBoth are mid-size trucks that send power to the rear wheels only and have a hint of off-roadability about them. They’re what are known as “Prerunners,” so-called for their spiritual inspiration, trucks with desert-friendly raised suspensions and rear-drive for speedy [...]
Send it! Ford went big on this F-150 Raptor jump—real big. So big, in fact, that a screenshot of the red 2021 Ford F-150 Raptor at the height of its skyward trajectory looks fake. Ridiculously photoshopped. It’s not, though. It’s for real. We grabbed some screenshots of the action, too, but you can see the video all over Instagram, where it’s been shared around after being deleted by the original poster. We’ve watched it a thousand times and still can’t believe our eyes. Forget the usual debut—we think Ford should have led with this clip when unveiling the all-new Raptor this week (not to say we weren’t fervently absorbing all of the new Raptor’s details anyway, but still … ).
https://www.instagram.com/p/CK4nCH7BlqX/
The dirt approach transitions into a soft, sand-dune launch, kicking the nose of the off-road-oriented F-150 pickup sky high before the truck levels out for the landing. With all that hang time, the driver [...]
Just a few months ago, we took a close look at how the newly-unveiled 2021 Ram 1500 TRX pickup fared with the previous title-holder of baddest truck on the lot: the 2020 Ford F-150 Raptor. Especially when we factored in our exclusive performance testing, it was bad news for the outgoing Raptor.
With the 2021 Ford F-150 Raptor’s arrival, the calculus changes once again. Let’s take a closer look at these two trucks, now that they’re both current, and see where they differ, and in what ways one might excel over the other.
Which Is Bigger—Ford F-150 Raptor or Ram 1500 TRX?The new 2021 Raptor will only be available in a SuperCrew configuration, whereas the previous truck was also available in a shorter-wheelbase, stubbier-rear-door SuperCab arrangement. That means that the comparison with the 2021 TRX is even easier, since that truck is also available in only four-door crew-cab configuration. The trucks now both ride [...]
Ford’s desert-race darling Raptor has offered two frames before, but that was to accommodate different cabs. Now offered in SuperCrew configuration only, the 2021 Ford F-150 Raptor gets a separate frame just to handle the beating it will take from the new Raptor 37 variant’s Big Foot 37-inch tires when bounding off rocks and across arroyos. Let’s examine the frames, the Live Valve Fox Shox, the “trombone exhaust,” and other technical highlights that promise to make this third-generation Raptor the baddest of them all.
Two New FramesAll 2021 Raptor frames differ greatly from those of their lesser F-150 brethren to accommodate the longer-travel independent front and all new five-link, coil-spring, live-axle rear suspension setups. In front are taller, stronger shock towers and a unique rear lower control arm pivot. At the rear there are the control-arm mounting brackets, upper spring perches, and reinforced shock mounting locations
The Raptor 37 frame is further modified with [...]
