2018 Ford F-150 Long-Term Arrival

Measure twice, cut once. My predecessor (Hi, Benson!) left me with those words of wisdom before he turned in his key card and passed me the baton of managing Motor Trend’s vehicle fleet. Perhaps I should’ve been more mindful of that advice when I ordered our long-term 2018 Ford F-150, our current Truck of the Year champ.

“Umm, I think this is the wrong truck,” I told the driver who delivered the F-150 to our office. “This is a SuperCab. We ordered a SuperCrew.”

“You’ll need to talk to Ford,” he said as he tossed me the keys. “This is what they gave us.”

There would be no need to talk to Ford. After marching back to my desk and digging through my emails, I found the build sheet I sent off months ago – “2018 Ford F-150 Lariat SuperCab.” Deng it. My bad. And now, it’s my truck.

As you’ve probably noticed at your local Home Depot, crew cabs—with their full-sized rear passenger area and doors—dominate the truck world. In the case of the F-150, SuperCrews account for approximately 80 percent of sales (Ford couldn’t provide a breakdown of regular and SuperCab trucks). But why so little love for the SuperCab? Like the SuperCrew, It also seats five passengers. Rear legroom is cut by quite a bit (33.5 versus 43.6 inches), but it’s tolerable for quick runs around the city. Road trips? We’ll find out. And the rear suicide-style doors are kind of cool, too.

Another benefit of the SuperCab? We were able to order the 6.5-foot bed and keep our truck’s overall length at a little over 19 feet. A SuperCrew with the same bed would be about a foot longer. Doesn’t sound like much, but that’s a big deal in L.A.

Under the hood, we opted for the popular 2.7-liter, twin-turbo EcoBoost V-6 that’s mated to a 10-speed automatic and makes 325 hp and 400 lb-ft of torque. “The 2.7 is all the engine most folks will ever need,” we said during Truck of the Year evaluations. And it’s even more of a no-brainer when you consider it’s just a $995 premium over the base 3.3-liter V-6. We’ll test its mettle and towing performance, and see how close we get to its EPA rating of 19/24/21 mpg city/highway/combined.

We opted for the Lariat trim, right in the middle of the F-150 lineup that includes the F-150 XL at the bottom and the F-150 Platinum up top. Base price for our truck is $46,335, which is just under $4,000 more than the XLT that sits below it. We consider it money well spent thanks to the 18-inch wheels, leather seats, Sync 3 infotainment with an 8.0-inch touchscreen, heated and cooled front seats, trailer hitch, power-sliding rear window, and a truck bed with LED lighting and the BoxLink modular cargo management system.

Our attempt to remain frugal with the options list proved difficult. Many checkboxes later, we faced $11,575 worth of added goodies, the bulk of which went to the Equipment Group 502A package ($5,835) that includes premium audio, navigation, LED side-mirror spotlights, blind-spot monitoring, step bars, LED headlights, and numerous exterior chrome trim pieces. Total tally comes to $57,910. There’s plenty of things to admire about our new truck. Will the SuperCab setup be one of them?

2018 Ford F-150 Lariat FX4
BASE PRICE	$44,835
PRICE AS TESTED	$57,910
VEHICLE LAYOUT	Front-engine, 4WD, 5-pass, 4-door truck
ENGINE	2.7L twin-turbo DOHC 24-valve V-6 /10-speed automatic
TRANSMISSION	10-speed automatic
WHEELBASE	145.0 in
LENGTH x WIDTH x HEIGHT	231.9 x 79.9 x 77.2 in
EPA CITY/HWY/COMB FUEL ECON	19/24/21 mpg
ENERGY CONS, CITY/HWY	177/140 kW-hrs/100 miles
CO2 EMISSIONS, COMB	0.93 lb/mile

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