#HD

While Ford has been shipping all trims of its all-new 2023 Super Duty pickup line to customers since May, production issues have delayed things and you’ll be hard-pressed to find someone that’s actually driven one. Fortunately, the Blue Oval invited us to take a gander at the new trucks at the Ford Michigan Proving Grounds earlier this month.

As first impressions go, the Super Duty led off with a firm handshake and proved that it can be slotted into a myriad of roles. Ford offered up an impressive resume and a sound business plan and allowed us to beat on a few examples to prove its rigs were the correct vehicle for any job.

In case you haven’t noticed, America’s truck wars are in full swing. Now, more than ever, the Detroit Three are gleefully beating each other over the head with a proverbial chair printed with towing and torque figures. Prodigious power? Sure. Enormous cabins? Yewbetcha. Grilles to the moon? They got ya covered, buddy.

Hot on the heels of a half-ton rethink, the crew at Chevrolet turned their attention to the Heavy Duty series of pickups. In a perpetual race with their competition, and the introduction of new engines and no fewer than fifteen camera views, you know this thing is going to haul trailers like a large poutine from Frank’s Diner turns your author’s bloodstream into artery putty.

America’s truck wars are in full swing, with torque ratings going though the ceiling and the level of manufacturer braggadocio reaching a fever pitch. Where one goes, the other attempts to stomp.

That level of competition was on full display at last week’s drive event of the new Chevy Silverado HD. With Ram having snatched the torque crown to the tune of 1000lb-ft, The General was quick to point out their trucks accelerated faster despite the difference in twist. Ram, predictably, was quick to clap back.

The world is full of surprises. From the Cleveland Browns making it to Week 16 to the continued unpredictability of Elon Musk’s Twitter account, there is no shortage of shock and awe on this planet. Know what else was surprising? Last week, it snowed in Vegas. For once, there were toques aplenty on the Strip.

What’s not a surprise is the new Ram Heavy Duty pickups are equally as desirable as their half-ton brethren, particularly in the spiffy new cabin. What does 1,000 lb-ft of torque feel like? Can it haul the mail?

You bet your Golden Nugget poker chips it can.

Fans of heavy duty trucks with grilles the size of Texas have a lot to celebrate this year. Ram dropped its new HD in Detroit and GM previewed its alarmingly styled Heavy Chevy late last year. All signs point to Ford unfurling a new Super Duty very soon, possibly at the Chicago show next month.

Now, GMC’s into the game. The not-a-Chevy brand revealed its 2020 Heavy Duty pickups online last night. The new Sierra HD makes like Daft Punk: harder, better, faster, stronger.

The last time I looked at my 1969 Chevrolet CST/10, it was a pile of disappointment. After reviving it and replacing a freeze plug, it proceeded to pop three more freeze plugs during warm up. Time was beginning to run out, my dad’s house had gone up to market and quickly sold. The truck was a long way away from driving out of Houston, and I needed to get it out of town. Time and money were a factor, I didn’t have time to spend money running a truck and trailer to Houston, just for the CST/10. Thankfully, three things lined up: A truck, a trailer, and a reason to drive to Houston. The truck is a customer’s, who loans the truck out in return for a few favors on the truck’s maintenance. The trailer came from my friend’s rally shop, which I moonlight at. And the Lone Star Region Porsche Club had invited me to partake in their refreshed autocross program at Houston Police Academy just before the closing deadline on my father’s house. Win-win, right? I packed the suitcase, tools and dog, hemorrhaged a gas pump to fill the truck, and blasted to Houston.

The last few years have been a struggle for a lot of folks. Financial meltdowns. Millions of bankruptcies. Massive unemployment. Our ‘global’ economy continues to experience a maelstrom of wealth destruction that seems to make nearly everyone guard their money.

It’s been hell for most…. but guess what? In spite of it all you are among the few who have thrived. In fact you are laughing all the way to your nearest dealership.

So get your something nice! Let’s say the budget is up to $65,000. What would you buy for yourself? Would it be a lightly used Lexus with all the trimmings? A new BMW 5-Series? Maybe one of those VW Touaregs with the diesel engine and all the luxury trappings of a neo-Audi.

In my neck of the woods where the suburbs meets the ex-urbs, this question has only one suitable answer… a truck.

With Dodge decidedly losing the torque-war in the heavy duty pickup truck segment, it’s up to Ford and GM to battle out the pickup truck war of the decade. In this corner we have the 2011 Ford F-250 Super Duty Diesel sporting the lightly retuned 6.7L turbo engine that is currently king of the pickup truck hill at 800ft-lbs. For 2011, Ford decided to drop the problematic 6.4L Navistar diesel engine in favor of an all-new, all-Ford 6.7L twin turbo V8 cranking out 400HP and an incredible 800lb-ft of torque. Connected to the ground via Ford’s 6R140 heavy-duty TorqShift six-speed automatic transmission, the amazing feat of engineering is not that the engine can make this much twist, but that the transmission can take it.