1999 Ford F-350 Super Duty SuperCab XLT Is a Gentle Giant

From the August 1998 issue of Car and Driver.

Ford’s 1999 Super Duty pickups did not debut until last March, so we must chalk up to coincidence the name of a Memphis hip-hop group that debuted in 1995: The band is called Big Ass Truck. We’ll take this opportunity to appoint them the official band of our F-350 Super Duty SuperCab, a “Big Ass Truck” if we’ve ever driven one.

Ford’s restyled lighter-duty F-150 and F-250 trucks have been around since the 1997 model year and have maintained Ford’s place not only at the top of the pickup market, but at the top of the auto­motive market as a whole. No vehicle out­sells the full-size Ford pickup in the U.S. The Super Duty pickups have soldiered on with a design that has had only modest updating since 1987, so they were overdue for a makeover.

This, however, is much more than a makeover. Heavy-duty pickups tradition­ally have been just beefed-up versions of light trucks. Ford’s 1999 Super Duty model shares considerably less with its little-brother F-150 than previously.

Looks, for instance. The Super Duty pickups have big, substantial grilles that more than one observer has suggested was inspired by the current Dodge Ram pickup. Door handles are vertical instead of hori­zontal, and both doors have a neat little cutout by the massive rearview mirrors that adds to up-close visibility for the driver.

Under the hood, there’s another big dif­ference—two more cylinders’ worth. Our F-350 was powered by the optional 6.8-liter V-10, hitherto available only on the full-size Ford van. Its 275 horsepower is impressive, but its 410 pound-feet of torque is what makes it a worthwhile truck engine. It isn’t as gutsy as Dodge’s 8.0-liter, 300-horse pushrod V-10, but the SOHC Ford is smoother and less indus­trial. Despite the big exhaust outlet, it sounds like a relatively docile V-8.

As with the Dodge, serious truck cus­tomers are more likely to opt for the diesel choices—the 7.3-liter turbo-diesel in the Ford, or the 5.9-liter turbo-diesel in the Dodge—but the V-10s work well enough for light-industrial users who need the towing power but don’t travel enough miles to allow the diesel’s better fuel economy to justify its substantially higher price. (General Motors, incidentally, isn’t interested in V-10 power—the General will stick with the 290-horse, 7.4-liter V-8 as the big-block gas workhorse for the heavy­-duty line of next-generation pickups, likely due in 2000.) Even with the gas engine, our F-350 is a workhorse: The gross vehicle-­weight rating is 11,200 pounds, and the towing capacity is 14,300 pounds.

That aside, we expect a certain number of Ford customers to be swayed by the prominent front-fender badges that say, “Triton V-10,” sort of the late-Nineties’ equivalent of the Sixties’ muscle-car hood scoop, although the majority of customers would likely find the standard 5.4-liter V-8 to be plenty adequate. The V-10 provides right-respectable acceleration in this 6360-pound dualie—0 to 60 mph took 10.1 sec­onds, and the quarter-mile went by in 17.7 seconds at 77 mph. Our last 7.5-liter V-8 F-350 dualie ran 17.3 seconds to 60 mph and 20.5 at 65 mph in the quarter-mile in February 1991.

The engine and the four-speed 4R100 automatic transmission are nicely matched. There is no redline on the 6000-rpm tachometer, with most shifts per­formed at 4800 rpm under hard accelera­tion. Aside from some noise from the six big General Grabber radial tires and huge outside mirrors, the cabin is surprisingly quiet, all the better to listen to the compact AM/FM/cassette/CD player mounted in the dash as a single unit. (Those $155 optional mirrors, incidentally, are worth a tip of the hat—the bottom section offers a fixed wide-angle view, and the top is elec­trically adjustable and stands out far enough to see the sides of most trailers.)

On the road, the stiffly sprung F-350’s ride (the suspension is Ford’s long-lateral-­arm, twin-I-beam setup with coil springs in front, a live axle with leaf springs in the rear) is tolerable on most surfaces, jarring only on very rough roads. The anti-lock brakes work well—the 242-foot stopping distance recorded from 70 mph is respectable given this truck’s size and three-ton weight.

Handling, however, is another story. The 0.55 g we recorded is lower than any skidpad figure we’ve generated for a pro­duction vehicle in more than a decade. It’s also well behind the 0.67 g we measured on our last F-350 dualie. Suffice it to say that owners won’t be seeking out twisty roads.

On the highway, however, it’s certainly pleasant enough. At night, the driver is reminded of the width the extra rear wheels add by little yellow marker lights on the fenders. To glance in your side mirror and spot those lights can be momentarily jarring to those of us less used to the dualie experience. This is a truck that is effortlessly and comfortably capable of covering a great many miles in a day, loaded or otherwise.

It is not without a few shortcomings, however. Although all extended-cab Fords now have two rear half-doors, accessing the rear seats on our F-350 involves climbing through a tangle of front seat­belts. And once back there, you’ll wish you weren’t—the fold-down seats are hard and upright, with limited legroom, espe­cially compared with the rear seats in the new-for-’99 GM full-size extended-cab pickups. Those who genuinely need a rear seat on a regular basis are advised to look to the full four-door Crew Cab model.

And in searching for the jack assembly, we found part of it under the hood and part inside the cab. For all that searching, it was just a modest little bottle jack. Better to call road service than to try to change a rear wheel with this Ranger-sized con­traption.

With a list price of about $30,000, our F-350 seemed to offer a lot of truck for the money, in every sense of the word. Fea­tures like dual airbags, anti-lock brakes, pop-out rear side windows, cruise control, a potent stereo, and comfortable front seats (power on the driver’s side) make the mas­sive pickup entirely acceptable as daily transportation. But unless you have a lot of work to do—or simply demand instant respect at every four-way-stop—it’s far, far more truck than most of us need.