The 2016 Ford F-150 has earned the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety’s (IIHS) Top Safety Pick for SuperCrew and SuperCab configurations, the only large pickup to earn such distinction.
Raj Nair, Ford executive vice president, Global Product Development, and chief technical officer, says the company set its sights on best in class crash performance when engineers began designing the current generation of Ford’s flagship pickup.
Ford says F-150s class-leading crash test performance is enabled by the use of high-strength steel in the frame; high-strength, military-grade, aluminum alloy in the body; and “smart engineering,” which also help to save up to 700 pounds of weight to enable best-in-class ratings for towing, payload and EPA-estimated gasoline fuel economy.
A cross-functional group of Ford truck veterans worked thousands of hours to deliver improved durability, capability, fuel economy and safety. The team created 31 safety-related innovations – including new structures that manage crash forces, and joining methods that were tested virtually with supercomputer simulations, then retested in Ford’s advanced laboratories.
These smart innovations include a patented extruded aluminum roof crossmember and additional frame crossmember to help improve crash resilience.
To manage crash forces in the IIHS small overlap front crash test, Ford created a system of innovations that work together to help protect the driver. Nylon hinge pillar reinforcements save weight, and in conjunction with specially designed wheel blockers, work to control crash forces while also providing additional safety.
“The same innovative approach applied to every other attribute of the 2016 F-150 is exemplified in our commitment to safety,” says Nair. “We spent thousands of hours engineering, designing and developing multiple safety features that work together in the event of an accident.”
F-150 is the only full-size, light-duty truck to earn National Highway Traffic Safety Administration’s highest rating, a five-star Overall Vehicle Score and a five-star rating for driver and passenger for all crash test modes and cab configurations – SuperCrew, SuperCab and Regular Cab.
