Folks,

Well, the order is in. Today I signed off (actually didn't sign anything, we did this on a handshake) for a special order F-350 with the legendary (in this community at least) 6.2L engine.

I would like to thank those of you on this board who have been quite patient with my oddball questions over the past several months, your input has been very valuable to me during the process of sorting through the 24 individual options this truck is going to be built with.

Now the waiting game begins. The dealer guy I'm working with echoed my belief that while this truck is a numerical possibility based on the 2014 Order Guide, Ford actually builds very few (if any) of them (Fully loaded Lariat SuperCab 4X4 with the gas engine and a real honest to goodness 8 foot bed). For this reason scheduling the build will probably take longer than normal, so expect 12 weeks minimum. Merry Christmas to me. Until then my trusty old 1994 F-250 will reliably soldier on as it has for the almost 20 years I've had it, probably logging its 250,000th mile before the end of next month.

For me it feels kind of odd to order a truck with a drivetrain that I've never actually seen, much less driven as around these parts dealerships only stock oil burners. Blind faith on my part fueled (no pun intended) by the posts I've read here.

A couple things I ought to note for the sake of trivia:

According to my sales guy, Ford manufactures 13 Crew Cab pickups with the short bed to every 1 of *any other* combination. No idea on the trim distribution.

The electronic locking differential is in short supply as Ford has ramped up production of the F-150 Raptors. I didn't know it was the same part, though maybe it's more of a supplier issue.

The SuperCab body style goes away at the next body refresh (MY 2015) due more to federal government side-impact crash standards than any other reason. Getting a B-Pillar between the doors with the lighter materials they are planning to build the trucks out of is critical to meeting those standards.

Cheers,

Joe