Barry Engles and Matt O'Leary with the 2009 Ford F-150; photo by Haney Louka. Click image to enlarge
By Jim Kerr
Photo Gallery: 2009 Ford F-150
It takes much more to design a new vehicle than meets the eye. We often see the swoopy drawings of exterior and interior concepts in advertisements, or watch commercials where vehicles are being crash tested to showcase safety, but that is a small part of the overall work in getting from a concept in a designer's mind to the initial complete build of "Job One". Consumers can also play an important part in how vehicles are designed, and Ford's new 2009 F-150 is a great example of this.
The Ford F-150 pickup has been the best selling vehicle in Canada for the past five years and one of the best selling trucks in North America for most of the past 42 years. If you took all the F-150's sold in Canada and parked them end to end, they would stretch from Halifax to Vancouver. So when Ford went to design a new truck they had the difficult task of designing something better. I sat down with Barry Engles, the young and dynamic CEO of Ford Motor Company of Canada, and Matt O'Leary, the F-150 Chief engineer, to discuss how a new and better vehicle is brought to market.
Traditionally, focus groups have been an important part of initial vehicle design. Concepts and designs are shown to select groups of people both inside and outside the company in order to get some feedback on their likes and dislikes. In addition, automakers receive feedback about concept vehicles from the public at car shows. However, for the new 2009 F-150, Ford took a slightly different approach.
First, the design group asked many groups of F-150 owners to bring their trucks to a location where the designers and engineers could see them. Then they had the truck owners show the group how they used their trucks - what they loaded in the bed and how they did it- what they towed, what they had added to the trucks, and how they used the interior space. From this several key items were identified. For example, many owners found the deep sides of the box made it difficult to reach items inside the box. The designers suggested a lower box side, but the owners didn't want to give up cargo space. To solve this problem, Ford designed a folding side step that fits under the box in front of the rear wheels. Touch the button in the centre with your toe and the spring-loaded step folds out from beneath the box. Load or unload your gear and then push the step back in again with your foot. The step has a 500-pound load capacity and would be a great addition to any truck!
Some owners found getting in and out of the box to be a challenge and used a box or a milk crate as a step. Ford made a simple change, adding the rear tailgate step and handle already offered on the SuperDuty trucks to the F-150 option list. Owners liked the tailgate extenders that fold out when the tailgate is down to hold longer loads but disliked having to remove and install it all the time. The solution was to design a two-part extender that folds flat against the inside of the box when not in use but connects together quickly for carrying bigger loads.
Some owner demands were more challenging. O'Leary described the innovative trailer braking system with trailer sway control as being a leader in towing technology. Roll and sway sensors in the truck detect trailer sway perhaps even before the driver does and corrects for it by applying truck and trailer brakes selectively while also controlling engine power output. Driving a vehicle with a trailer swinging back and forth behind it is a scary event and this feature brings a large amount of safety technology to the many F-150 owners that tow.
Engles says that a new web site, www.fordpoweredbyyou.ca, is a social media site where "they can tell us what they like". This site is driven by the public - a place where they can discuss vehicles and provide feedback to Ford. Consumers can now literally shape the cars and truck Ford builds tomorrow.
Jim Kerr is a master automotive mechanic and teaches automotive technology. He has been writing automotive articles for fifteen years for newspapers and magazines in Canada and the United States, and is a member of the Automotive Journalist's Association of Canada (AJAC).
