Class Warfare: Ford’s 2017 F-450 is a Class 3 Pickup Truck
When we announced the official towing and payload numbers for the 2017 Ford Super Duty, some of you commented about how it wasn’t a fair comparison to compare a F-450 against a Ram 3500. It would make more sense to compare the towing and payload of the F-350, instead. When it comes to Class 3 pickup trucks, though, Ford has two entries. Both the F-450 and F-350 are Class 3.
Truck classifications are based on GVWR, and not truck construction. A Class 3 truck needs to have a GVWR between 10,001 pounds and 14,000 pounds. With the 2017 Ford Super Duty, both the F-350 and F-450 fall into that category.
Ram Trucks has long taken issue with Ford’s claim that the F-450 is a Class 3 truck, and would rather call it a Class 4 pickup (and the only one in a class of one). Ford’s Mike Levine recently told the folks at Equipment World, “Ram continues to confuse class with nomenclature. Our max tow F-Series Super Duty pickup truck is the F-450. It’s Class 3, like our F-350 pickup truck.”
It should be noted that the max towing of both the F-450 and F-350 exceed the max towing of the Ram 3500, meaning that even if you were to compare the F-350 to the Ram, the Ford still wins.
What do you think? Let us know over in the forums!
via [Equipment World]
