18 Surprising Things You Didn't Know About the Ford F-150

Stop us if you've heard this one: The rugged, reliable Ford F-150 is the bestselling truck in America. And it's been that way since the White House was occupied by a man named, well, Ford. It's also been America’s bestselling vehicle year after year, even when you count cars, SUVs, and anything else on wheels. From its roots more than 100 years ago to the new electric F-150 Lightning, which is poised to become a source of cheaper power for California's overburdened power grid, here's a look at some things you might not know about America's favorite vehicle. 

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The electric F-150 Lightning is a powerhouse, literally. Ford and Pacific Gas & Electric, the major electric utility in central and northern California, are are partnering to evaluate how the truck can help PG&E restore power to city grids during an outage. The F-150 has bidirectional charging, which means it can return energy to a home or another source. The hope is that the EV could help provide power during peak hours, then charge up again at off-peak hours, helping lighten the load on the power grid. PG&E is also partnering with GM for a similar program. 

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In 1917, just nine years after Henry Ford’s Model T put mainstream America on the road, Ford created its first truck. Called the Model TT, it was available in several configurations and could tow a full ton of cargo. It wasn’t, however, a truck in the modern sense. The TT was built on the chassis of a car.

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Ford shut down automotive production during World War II to configure its factories to contribute to the war effort. In 1948, however, the post-war boom was on, and Ford unveiled the F-Series of trucks. They would prove to be game-changers for the future of the American automobile. Unlike earlier incarnations, they were built on dedicated truck platforms, not car chassis.

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There were eight different models available in the first generation of F-Series trucks, which ran from 1948-1952. They had different towing capacities, payload capacities, and different body styles. Named in sequence from F-1 through F-8, it represented the first modern lineup of options in a model series of trucks. 

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Eventually, the numbering scheme changed to reflect the payload capacity for each truck in the F-Series line according to tonnage. An F-100 could tolerate a half-ton (1,000 pounds). An F-200 has a payload capacity of one ton (2,000 pounds). The vaunted F-150 is in the middle with 1½ tons (1,500 pounds).

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In 1975, when the F-Series was in its sixth generation, the world met the F-150, which quickly jumped the F-100 as the most popular truck in the F-Series. Within just a year or two, the F-150 became the bestselling pickup truck in America and has held that title ever since. It has remained at the top of the throne uncontested for an astonishing 43 years straight through 2019. It would soon become America’s favorite vehicle — period.

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For generations, the F-Series has been a mainstay on construction sites, farms, quarries, and tough, demanding job sites of all stripes. To differentiate between work trucks and consumer trucks, Ford introduced in 1998 the Super Duty line of medium-duty trucks for commercial use. The F-150 was aligned for light-duty use.

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The Super Duty is the truck of choice for huge majorities of workers in the waste management, government, and highway and street construction industries. But the arrival of the medium-duty commercial truck did not spell the end for the F-150 as the hard-hat, lunch-pail truck of choice. According to Ford figures from 2015, 72.7% of electric services workers, 61.2% of water, sewer and pipeline construction workers, and 56.3% of crude petroleum and natural gas workers use Ford F-150 trucks.

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The Ford Performance Division is responsible for the brand’s supercars and racing cars such as the Ford GT and GT MK II, as well as the storied Shelby Mustang lineup. In the mix in that elite shop and racing team is the F-150 Raptor, a powerful beast of a truck. Its 24-valve, 3.5-liter twin-turbo engine is good for a roaring 450 horsepower.

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The F-Series has evolved plenty since those blocky earliest versions rolled off the production line. The seventh-generation (1980-1986) saw the elimination of the F-100, which made the F-150 the lightest pickup truck on the market. The previous generation in 2015 saw a change from steel to an all-aluminum body, which allowed the F-150 to shed 750 extra pounds. This was a significant accomplishment, especially considering that the frame is still made from high-strength steel, which allows it to retain its durability.

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All of Detroit’s Big Three automakers depend on pickup trucks, which they sell in numbers that, according to Auto Week are “figures so staggering they’re difficult to believe” — but none more than Ford. Ford sells 2,452 F-Series trucks every single day. That’s 102 trucks an hour, which means that nearly two people buy an F-150 every minute of every day, seven days a week, 24 hours a day.

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In 2019, the F-Series sold an incredible 896,526 units. (A coronavirus pandemic makes 2020 figures potentially less meaningful.) For context, the bestselling car of the year (and every year, it seems), the Toyota Camry, sold 336,978 — but even that wasn’t the lineup’s record. The year before in 2018, Ford sold 909,300 F-series trucks. In fact, the F-series broke the 900,000 mark four times, including in 2004, when it sold an astonishing 939,511 units.

For generations, the Ford F-Series has been America’s truck of choice — and vehicle of choice in general, for that matter. In 2017, Ford sold its 26 millionth F-Series truck in the 40 years since 1977 alone.

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Capitalizing on the F-150’s popularity, Ford released several awesome special editions. In 2000, the automaker partnered with Harley-Davidson to make a special truck in homage to the legendary U.S. motorcycle brand. In 1991, the blacked-out F150 Nite made its debut. The single-cab, short-box SVT F-150 Lightning ran between 1993-1996 and in 1998, the F-150 NASCAR special edition featured special race car rims. 

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Part of the F-150’s unrivaled popularity is due to the fact that it’s affordable for a big, powerful, reliable, full-size truck. The 2021 model starts at $28,940. There are six models, however, including the Raptor, with trim packages that increase in price all the way up to $71,920 for the Limited edition.

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In 2018, combined sales revenue for the F-150 and Super Duty line reached an astonishing $50 billion, then $42 billion last year. That beats or is on par with revenue reported by Fortune 500 companies such as Best Buy, American Express, and Oracle. Another way to put it: Someone was buying an F-150 or Super Duty truck every 29 seconds in 2018.

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In the 1970s, truck aficionado Bob Chandler made history when he built the world’s first monster truck. He obsessively modified his truck to become bigger, badder, and louder than any other civilian truck on Earth. Chandler’s nickname was Bigfoot, which he painted on the side of his outsized Franken-vehicle. Bigfoot remains the first and most famous monster truck of all time. The truck he built it on was a regular 1974 Ford F-250.

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In May of 2021, Ford debuted the F-150 Lightning, the all-electric version of the F-150, and the media coverage was lavish, to say the least. President Joe Biden even made an unscheduled stop at the Ford Rouge Electric Vehicle Center the day before to test drive one, remarking, "This sucker's quick." Given the historical popularity of the F-150, some pundits are theorizing that its electric truck could change the game in much the same way — and even beyond — the Model T did in the early 20th century. "Ford has a lot at stake in the new vehicle’s success," wrote The New York Times the same day the truck was unveiled. "If it can turn the F-150 Lightning into a big seller, it could accelerate the move toward electric vehicles, which scholars say is critical for the world to avoid the worst effects of climate change."