If the 2017 model year (or what we've been calling the 2016) F-250-550 Super Duty had the exact same cab, from A pillar to C pillar, and everything in between, as the new 2015 F-150, would you approve?

The cabs of the two classes have been split for almost two decades now, beginning in 1997. Would you mind if on the 20th anniversary of this split, they got back together again?

In the early to mid 90's, Ford had several somewhat divergent design versions of then upcoming new line of Class 2 and 3 light trucks destined to be christened the Super Duty. Ford formed a focus group, included a few folks in the light truck upfit industry, invited them to a super secret warehouse, unveiled the prototypes, and asked their opinion. A couple of the versions had a few of the jelly bean like design cues very similar to then upcoming 97 F-150/250LD.

Here are a few suggestive renditions attached for fun, not necessarily for fact. Try to put yourself back 20 years, and imagine the F350 being planned to look like this:













Anyway, back to the story, the focus group response at the secret meeting was an overwhelming "no"... the HD light truck market wanted bigger cabs, more traditional lines, more masculine appearance, and a distinct bed to cab separation (for practical reasons, like easier, less awkward looking upfits to vocational beds and bodies with enough clearance for body twist).

Fast forward to today... the F-150 has evolved to having square, masculine, angular, chiseled lines (albeit a very watered down, designed by committee, anemic shadow of it's design inspiration, the Atlas). And, the F150 even has the Louisville/AeroMax inspired Super Duty like front window sill line dip to keep the outside rear view mirrors lower and still in view.

Is this 2015 F-150 cab worthy of Super Duty? Is it big enough and wide enough for a crew of 6 6'6" workmen?


The "spy shots" of the next generation Super Duty have given up a few clues of what might be to come, despite the flammable full body bra. From looking at the way the bra covers the door openings and handles, it would not surprise me if we see the following two significant changes in the way the doors open and close:

1. INLAID Doors... similar to the retro move the new F150s, the Rams, and the new GM trucks have already made, where instead of the door window frame clamshelling ONTO the cab, it fits instead INTO the cab, like most car and truck doors used to do in up until the 80's, when the clamshell door was invented to reduce production costs, as it was more forgiving of tolerance deviations... ie, the doors didn't have to fit perfectly INTO the body when they could be mounted "close enough" ONTO the body, with any slight deviations being mitigated by a more elaborate weather strip seal.

2. BAR PULL Handles... instead of the vertical paddle handles that have been on the Super Duty for the last 16 years. The current vertical paddle handles look nice and flush with the body, and are easier to operate with a spare pinky than the horizontal lift up paddle pull handles of the late 70s, and the arthritic joint killing thumb push of the 80's, but they still may not be as ergonomic for some folks as the modern straight bar pulls that many vehicles have evolved to today.


Two other clues point to the possibility of a cab merge between the F150 and the F250-550.

A. ALUMINUM. Designing and manufacturing vehicle occupancy structures out of aluminum is a VERY expensive investment. All new machinery is required. It's harder to resistance spot weld a material that is a great conductor and has a lot less resistance. In other aluminum bodied vehicles, many meters of mig welds are substituted with self piercing rivets and epoxy adhesives. For joint stability, stampings are supplemented with hollow extrusions and complex castings. I suspect that Ford has undertaken the same sea change in production process... the question is, to keep the cost of a pickup still reachable to the work force, will Ford want to do it twice?

B. INTERIOR. Someone posted some "spy shots" claiming to be the interior of the next generation Super Duty. If true, then the interiors between the 2015 F150 and the upcoming 2017 (released in 2016?) Super Duty are virtually identical. If that is the case, is there any reason why the aluminum body structure underneath that interior should be different?

What say you, future Super Duty buyer? Imagine the exact same cab between the F150 and F250-550, but with model dependent hood, fenders, fenderettes, grille, headlights, and bumpers to offer distinguishing body styles. Obviously the frames, drivetrain, and chassis running gear would be different, but would you approve of the same cabin across all F-Series?

 

I dunno if I would approve the same cab, like the other "two" I think it's weird that you can barely tell the difference between their 1/2 tons and their hd trucks.

B. I noticed the interiors looks identical as well, but they are very similar right now as well, dunno if I like the new interior, but I'm sure it will grow on me...

 

For decades, Ford was just like the "other two", using the same cabin from F-100 through F-800. The only difference was hood, fenders, fenderettes, grille, and lower cab skirting. Sometimes there were firewall and dashboard differences to accommodate the different powertrains, but from a passenger enclosure point of view, the cabs were the same. All the way up to 1997.

Let's compare just one metric of interior dimensions between the new 2015 F-150 crew cab, with the current Super Duty crew cab. As a big guy myself, I'm going to pick front and rear leg room.

2014 F-250/350/450/550 Super Duty Crew Cab
Front Legroom: 41.1" Rear Legroom: 42.1"

2015 F-150 "Super Crew" Cab
Front Legroom: 43.9" Rear Legroom: 43.6"


Which cab would you rather have?

Would it be fair to say that the new F-150 Super Crew Cab is worthy of Super Duty, because it longer from firewall to rearwall than the current crew cab on the Super Duty?


Take a look at this photo, from a shoot of all the King Ranch models lined up in front of the King Ranch barn:






Which cab looks bigger to you?

What is interesting to me is how the "experts" who make a living writing about and predicting future changes in vehicles were so distracted by the camo/bra covering extending aft of the rear cab window, they could only think "megacab" in terms of the Ram flavor they were already used to seeing.

But why have a big ol' thick blind spot for a C pillar, and why build two different crew cabs, when the cab can be made a little bit bigger, offer a larger rear window, with less of blind spot at the C pillar, and save costs by building only one type of crew cab?

The expression "hiding in plain sight" come to mind.

 

Man, I'm really liking the new f150. Just imagine that with big goofy bumpers now to hide the hd frame, just like fiat and chev, well at least I notice the bigger bumper on the chev to fill the space. Fiat looks to have spacers under the headlights...

I like the sd, completely designed to be an hd truck.

Look how much bigger the f150 has become just from the 04-08 cab, the sd cab on the other hand, well geeze, it's 16 years old with no updates, I'm sure we will gain a little room as well, if ford follows how they have updated the f150 over the years.

Also, having owned the last gen f150 (now that the 15s, current gens are out) I found you sit more like a car, stretched out. In my sd you sit up nice and high, I'm guessing that's were the loss of front legroom goes, not really needed with the difference on seating.

 

All of the 2017 prototype Super Duty photos published so far, combined with the move to an aluminum structure, provide a strong indication to me that Ford may very well return to a common cab shared between the F-150 and the F-Super Duty line, and yet the two lines of trucks will still maintain very clear and distinctive differentiating features in the other parts of their respective bodies. More so than the "other two", as you put it.

 

Same cab, different front clip and box, designed more around the bigger frame?

 

Yes. And designed around the engine and cooling stack behind the grille as well. Perhaps the details of the grille (partially seen already in the photos) will incorporate a tiny bit more of the "assertive" styling cues from the Atlas, with more open "nostrils" in the "C Clamp" area adjacent to the headlights.

And the box will likely be designed to maintain a 56" cab axle for the F-250/350 line, so the trucks will continue to be able to accept industry standard service bodies already manufactured for the box delete option on wide frame pickups.

Plastic grilles, headlamp housings, taillights, etc are a lot less costly to retool and make different than having to design, produce, and validate an entire cab structure. With Ford's front engine bay structure introduced in 2008 on the Superduty, I imagine that the fenders might be less "structural" than they perhaps used to be, and can be variated with lower development costs as well.

The costs of leaping to aluminum are so great as it is, it seems logical to produce the passenger cabin (occupant safety cage) as a common component. As my first post stated, if the F150 cab looked like the no straight line Taurus inspired 1997 version, then to make that jelly bean cab common with the Super Duty line would have alienated a lot of buyers.

But like you stated, you like the new F150 cab. And you like Super Duties. It appears as if the F-150 evolved back into a "truck-like" appearance, with design DNA rooting back to the SD Tonka Concept, that is further informed by the Atlas Concept. With the even larger 2015 design update, there appears to be no reason, from a consumer acceptance prospective, why the one cab cannot meet the needs of both light and heavy duty pick up buyers.

Or is there a reason why a potential buyer would not accept this move? That is what this thread is seeking to discover...

 

I'd be ok with the same cab then.

As long as ford puts a little more effort then chev, when a 1/2 ton and hd chev are parked beside each other, the only difference is the huge, bulky bumper that differences the two....horrible.

I really liked the Atlas concept, ford defiantly has better designs, so I'm sure they could pull off sharing the same cab, vs chebby or doodge

 

After driving hundreds of f150's.... That's going to be a huge NO.

I can't even begin to describe my disgust and irritation every time I get n an f150 after 96.

Get them away from me!!

Aside from quality concerns, the cabs themselves are too narrow, too minimal, too flat on the side, and very conservatively shaped. How about that?

I like some of the design additions to the new f150. But it still needs more 3-dimensional sculpting, stop trying to smooth everything out and make the front windows blend into the rear windows. Wider! Bigger front doors! Common what are we? I'm not short and I tire of puny f150 ingress and egress.

This is where the super duty comes in. Standard large everything just like all ford trucks since 1957.

 

subscribing

 

I think it would be a good idea for them to share the same cab. it would be more cost effective, both would share the same tooling, sheetmetal, and interior components..Ford would not have to stamp/manufacture two different cab types, make different dashboards, consoles, carpet molds, HVAC components, glass, etc..

Begin Rant.
however....I would not like to see the SD look like that hideous thing(the new F150)..but it looks like it will... hopefully they ditch the wannabe/toyota/RAM/GM/ look next time around...c'mon Ford, what happened to GOOD looking trucks?? Why are you "borrowing" styling cues from the other guys?

Ford trucks have always had a uniqueness, an aura, something about the way they look that has always made them stand out and catch your eye..but now.. they(new f150, and the SD in the spy shots) just look like every other truck coming out now...ugly spaceship-like interiors, ugly grilles, funky headlights/tail lights, plastic cladding galore, ugly lines stamped into body panels because they think it looks "tough"..In my opinion it looks CHEESY!

I have always loved the look of Ford trucks..until they introduced the 2015 F150...I guess i'm just stuck in the past when it comes to trucks..old=better..End Rant.

 

When I looked at the new super duty and did a review over the interior the cabs are pretty similar as well as the interior but they are not exact. There was still plenty of room in the superduty.

 

I like this post, especially when underscored by the image of the author's sig rig, a 78_F800crewcab4x4 with a Bronco back. There is simply a big Blue blooded, raw meat steak factor to it. Reps sent!

He said "3 Dimensional sculpting" and "too flat on the side"... we haven't had that spirt here since 1979! The 73-79 dentsides had a more sculpted appearance than the "minimal" "conservative" "flat" "thin" cab shape that debuted in 1980 and prevailed until 1996. Back when I bought my '79 F-250, I remember joking that there was more metal in the dashboard of my '63 F-100 than in the entire cab of the '79. Despite the 79 being my favorite sculpted Ford truck design, there indeed was a noticeable difference in how "thin" the metal on the dash had become. When the 1980 model was introduced with a plastic dashboard, all visible metal disappeared from the dash altogether. However, thinking it through, some plastics might be easier on the human body than metal in a collision.

The true heyday huge, hulk, heft and artfully sculptured heavy metal in automotive design had passed two decades earlier, in 1959. Whether it's the '59 truck cab or the '59 Cadillac, the design details were bulbous and big. BUT, were they better?

For a "how far we've come in 50 years" comparison, the Insurance Institute pitted a big bold beautiful 1959 BelAir against a thin tinny 2009 Malibu in an offset head on collision, driver's side to driver's side. Here's a couple of screen captures to compare:









The safety engineers who evaluated this crash from every angle, and examined the dummies inside, reported that the driver of the 09 Malibu would have suffered a knee injury. The driver of the 59 BelAir would have died instantly.

See the eye opening full video here:
Which brings us back to the common cab concept potentially shared between the 2015 F150 and the upcoming 2017 Super Duty. Regardless of cab design, to achieve the higher GVWRs of the Super Duty class, the trucks need to have heavier frames, heavier axles, heavier engines, heavier transmissions... even heavier wheels and tires, and for duallies, more of them. All this heavier weight is on the bottom of the truck, and in a vehicle rollover, that weight is rotated to top, crushing the cab greenhouse underneath.

When considering the cab design and material construction of the new Super Duty, and whether the cab could share some common construction elements with the F150, how concerned are you about cab crush in a rollover collision?

Here are a few examples of how the current steel Super Duty cab has faired in roll over collisions:, having doors that close ONTO the cab, rather than INTO the cab (inlaid) like the newer, or rather, the retro design, potentially offering additional resistance to a complete folding collapse of the A, B, and C pillars at the sill line.

 

I appreciate the reps!


I have seen all of the crash videos. An old truck won't buckle and collapse like an old car, they will however, flatten if laid on the roof hard. So on new trucks, roll bar standard? Easy fix. The higher the gvw, the stronger the roll bar.

 

I like the leg room of the F150, but it is lacking in the shoulder room that I like about the 250 and up. If they made the cab longer but still wider it would be perfect obviously.