2021 Ford F-150 XLT 4X4 First Test: Big Performance Doesn’t Come Cheap
In announcing our MotorTrend 2022 Truck of the Year, we observed that today's trucks are far more than workhorses. They're also commuter cars, family haulers, weekend toys, and luxury vehicles. It's a trend at least 20 years in the making, but one that doesn't make everyone happy. Indeed, some of you wrote to us and expressed your displeasure with this mission drift and argued for trucks to be treated like trucks again. That's easier said than done, as it turns out. Take, for example, this 2021 Ford F-150 XLT Supercrew 4X4 we just tested.
This isn't a blinged-out luxury truck; it's an XLT with cloth seats, a column shifter, basic four-wheel drive, a bedliner, and a max-towing package. One step above the base model, this should be a work truck, yet it's priced at $59,520 as tested. How the heck did that happen?
What's an XLT, Anyway?
A 2022 Ford F-150 XLT trim starts at a more reasonable $39,825 (banish the thought of a full-size truck starting for less than $30,000; those days are gone), but that only gets you a single cab, the base engine, and rear-wheel drive. Single cabs are old school, and every truck maker in the industry will tell you full four-door cabs like this F-150 Supercrew are bestsellers. That's an extra $5,260 right there.
Four-wheel drive is a $3,425 upgrade, and getting a stouter engine adds at least $1,195. If you want to tow and haul heavy things on the job site or at the farm, you need power. This 3.5-liter twin-turbo EcoBoost V-6 has plenty of both, but it costs $2,595. After destination and acquisition fees, you're already nearing $50,000 without any other options.
The rest of the asking price is made up of both the necessary and the nice to have. The max-trailer-towing package is $1,995, and the spray-in bedliner is another $595. Pro Power Onboard 2.0 kW, handy on the jobsite and in the field, is $995. Now we're at $54,000 for a work truck. The other $8,000 covers stuff you don't need for work but is nice to have, like the big infotainment system, optional wheels, etc.
Towing
Yep, modern work trucks are expensive. The good news is you still get a lot of work for your money. We hitched this Ford F-150 XLT up to a high-profile two-horse trailer and found it to be the comfortable, stable towing platform we've come to expect from Ford. After returning the livestock, we filled the bed with a yard of hot, fresh mulch for the garden. Here again, the torquey twin-turbo V-6 made light work of the added weight, and the sizable payload and tongue-weight ratings meant the truck barely squatted.
A Pleasant Ride
More impressive, though, is how well the Ford F-150 XLT rides, either empty or loaded. With leaf springs capable of holding up 2,100 pounds of payload, you'd reasonably expect a stiff ride, but Ford's engineers worked wonders. The F-150 is as pleasant and comfortable to drive while doing work as it is cruising into town for groceries.
Track Testing
It'll get you down to the market quick, too. Unburdened, the 3.5-liter twin-turbo V-6 hustled this 5,345-pound truck up to 60 mph in just 5.3 seconds and past the quarter-mile mark in 13.9 seconds at 99.9 mph.
Power is not a problem, and neither is stopping. The Ford F-150 XLT was consistent in our braking tests from 60 mph, achieving a best result of 126 feet, about average for a full-size pickup. Even better, the stops were drama-free, with little nosedive or wiggling around.
Handling tests were similarly uneventful. We discovered excellent composure for a pickup truck, with well-controlled body motions, good brakes, and strong traction. The 0.76-average lateral g it pulled on the skidpad and its 28.0-second figure-eight lap at 0.62-average g are on the right end of the full-size-truck class—and undersell how well the 2021 Ford F-150 XLT takes a corner without any weight loaded into it.
Safety
Opt for Ford's $750 Co-Pilot360 Assist 2.0 suite of driver aids and included among all the safety stuff are adaptive cruise control and lane-keep assistance, which helps steer the vehicle and keep it in the center of the lane. Ford's system, which takes some load off your mind on long highway slogs, is one of the better hands-on systems on the market.
Wrapping Up
The rest of the driving experience isn't bad, either. The cloth seats are plenty comfortable and feature a pleasing contrasting color scheme. The column shifter frees up a ton of center-console bin space and allows you to use the flip-out tray table while the truck is moving. The rear seat could use a bit more thigh support and recline, if we're being picky, but we like how much space it frees up when you fold it out of the way.
As mentioned earlier, our truck was fitted with the big infotainment screen, and it's good to see how far Ford's Sync system has come. This latest incarnation is more user friendly and intuitive, sports modern graphics, and has a handy split-screen mode that lets you use Apple CarPlay or Android Auto simultaneously with other built-in programs like the radio without having to change screens.
Simple fact is, unless you're a fleet manager buying dozens of trucks from a commercial dealer, even work trucks are pricey these days. Yes, the convenience and dress-up options can run up the bill, but even the stuff you need to get the job done will dent your budget hard. The good news is, these trucks drive, tow, and haul better than any time in history.
Looks good! More details? 2021 Ford F-150 XLT 4x4 Specifications BASE PRICE $45,850 PRICE AS TESTED $59,520 VEHICLE LAYOUT Front-engine, 4WD, 5-pass, 4-door truck ENGINE 3.5L Twin-turbo port- and direct-injected DOHC 24-valve 60-degree V-6 POWER (SAE NET) 400 hp @ 6,000 rpm TORQUE (SAE NET) 500 lb-ft @ 3,100 rpm TRANSMISSION 10-speed automatic CURB WEIGHT (F/R DIST) 5,345 lb (58/42%) WHEELBASE 145.1 in LENGTH x WIDTH x HEIGHT 231.7 x 79.9 x 77.2 in 0-60 MPH 5.3 sec QUARTER MILE 13.9 sec @ 99.9 mph BRAKING, 60-0 MPH 126 ft LATERAL ACCELERATION 0.76 g (avg) MT FIGURE EIGHT 28.0 sec @ 0.62 g (avg) EPA CITY/HWY/COMB FUEL ECON 18/23/20 mpg EPA RANGE, COMB 720 mi ON SALE Now Show AllYou may also like
The world is full of undiscovered treasures. Some people use metal detectors to dig up lost wonders, and others hunt garage sales for that pot of gold at the end of the proverbial rainbow. Gearheads, however, search the classifieds for their automotive lost treasure. This is that story, but this time around it wasn't the high-tech interwebs, it was a printed ad in a small-time newspaper. Yep, those still exist.As Todd Evans explained, "I was browsing a little-known local newspaper that serves the High Desert areas of California and the Lake Havasu, Arizona, area on a Sunday evening when I ran across the ad. 'CAR COLLECTION FOR SALE: 1963 Corvette cpe, 4 sp, SCCA race car w/spares.' That was it, a small text ad with no pictures in a little newspaper. The ad had a few other cars listed, a trailer, and two motorhomes that I didn't even pay attention to. However, it did have a phone number, which, in today's online advertising world, where people refuse to even talk to you unless it is via text or email, was like gold to me. Unfortunately, the ad said not to call after 9 p.m. It was 9:30, but there was no chance I could wait until morning. I would have gone clinically insane."Evans continued: "I called, and a great old guy named John Lloyd answered, laughing after I apologized at least five times for calling past his 9 p.m. deadline. John began to tell me the story of his Corvette that he had purchased as a stock split-window back in 1968, before turning it into his dream racecar in the early 1970s. Honestly, I'm not even entirely sure I heard what he said during most of the conversation. My mind was racing so fast it kind of reminded me of having a chat with Charlie Brown's teacher. He said it had big flares, big turbine wheels, big-block hood, side pipes, and a 'cage. He knew a lot of people wouldn't like all of those things, but I assured him, in the calmest voice that I could muster, that I loved all of them. He's telling me all of this and I still haven't even seen a picture of it yet! I was crushed when he proceeded to tell me he already had a deposit on the car!""John had raced it extensively throughout California in the '70s, and Riverside Raceway was his home track. He owned Rialto Wheel & Tire at the time and was a weekend warrior, as opposed to being a big-dollar, sponsored racer. He had some success, won some races, and had a blast with all of his buddies, racing every chance that he got. He finally retired the car in 1978 and switched to a much lighter tube-chassis Camaro, along with taking care of his now growing family. He parked the car in his friend's yard outside his garage after the last race that day and it never moved again for 44 years," recalled Evans."Back to the phone conversation—it was now about 10:30 at night and I offered to come out immediately. I would bring cash and a trailer, but it would have put me in Riverside around midnight. I didn't care. I wanted it. After much convincing (also known as begging), John said I could come out first thing in the morning to look at the car in case the guy that had put a deposit on the car backed out. No problem. I'll be there. Remember waiting on Christmas morning as a kid before you got to open your presents? That's what the rest of my Sunday night and Monday morning turned out to be.""My good buddy Ken from Moreland Choppers and Hot Rods and I loaded up the trailer while it was still dark the next morning and met John at a coffee shop in Temecula. He wanted to sit down and find out who I was before we would even go see the car, which I completely understood. After shooting the breeze for about an hour, my Christmas came even earlier than I expected. John said the guy that supposedly had given him a deposit was a friend of a friend of an acquaintance, who knew about the car from years ago. Turns out, he had been saying he would send a deposit for over a month and hadn't done anything. John was ready to move on and I was even more ready!"Evans recalled to HOT ROD, "We arrived to see the car out in Riverside, and the Corvette was so much cooler than we ever could have imagined. Aside from fading on some of the paint, it was just as it had been that day when he parked it almost 50 years ago. The interior, while obviously dirty, was like a time capsule, right down to the melt-in-the-sun, annoyingly sticky early-'70s SS steering wheel. I didn't want to negotiate. I didn't want to haggle. I had already told John numerous times that I would pay more than his asking price if he just let me buy the Corvette. John isn't that guy, and said if I wanted the car, I could have it for the original asking price.After digging the Corvette out from its resting place and finding, surprisingly, that the Firestones all held air, we winched it up onto the trailer with huge smiles on our faces. I think the common phrases on the drive home consisted of a lot of 'I can't believe that just happened.' We were given a bunch of old pictures of the car back in its heyday, even some in its former red-white-and-blue paint scheme. John being the guy that he is, he even threw in the rat poop, mice nests, and raccoon skulls for free!"So, what's next for this rescued vintage racer? Well, cleaning will be kept to a minimum, but Evans will be removing the critters, rat droppings, and bones from the interior and engine bay. As for the rest Evans told us, "I've never done much road course racing, so I would leave it just like it sits and make a nasty street car out of it. It still has the original VIN and title so it could be registered. We have a Hilborn-injected small-block sitting here in the shop begging to be put in something anyhow. It would be impossible to not love a streetcar that looks like it belongs in one of the best movies of all time, The Gumball Rally." Sounds like a solid plan to us, and we asked him to let us know when the vintage Corvette racer is back on the road! -Photos By Todd Evans
Do you want the good news or the bad news first? Well, we can't hear you, unfortunately, so we'll start with the good and get to the bad in a second. This is the 2022 Mazda CX-60, a plug-in hybrid (PHEV) crossover SUV that combines impressive total system output with what appears to be impressive overall fuel economy (if, of course, you plug it in often). The numbers are impressive, and so is the latest evolution of the company's Kodo design language, which looks more premium than ever.Power!Let's start with the PHEV powertrain. It combines the company's familiar 2.5-liter I-4 gas engine with a 100-kW e-motor and a 17.8-kWh battery, good for a total of 323 horsepower. That, Mazda says, makes it the most powerful road-going car the company's ever made. And with a 5.8-second sprint to 62 mph, this Mazda won't be a slouch at a stoplight, either.Mazda also claims this PHEV can travel 37 miles on pure electric power before its gas engine must fire and work in tandem with the electric motor as a hybrid. Its fuel consumption and emissions figures look impressive, too. And in the future, the CX-60 will get a number of additional powertrains, including a 3.0-liter e-Skyactiv-X I-6 and a 3.3-liter Skyactiv-D diesel, both equipped with 48V mild-hybrid systems that Mazda calls M Hybrid Boost. The CX-60 will feature i-Activ AWD, but when the I-6s come around, they will have the option of rear-wheel-drive. The CX-60 PHEV can even tow more than 5,500 lbs.KodoThe CX-60 is a shapely SUV, with proportions that draw attention to its new, rear-drive-based architecture in a huge way. The long hood and short front overhang give it a sleek look. The new grille has a premium texture that's accentuated by its bright surround and interesting divorced/integrated running light arrangement. Out back, things are handsome if a bit more generic. Devoid of badges, it could be an Infiniti or a BMW. The quad rhomboid exhausts are a nice touch, and well-integrated into the rear end. Chrome brightwork and fender garnishes add a bit of jewelry to the flanks.Inside, it's typical modern Mazda stuff, but the dash adopts a layered appearance with stacked horizontal elements, some of which surround and partially shroud the wide infotainment screen. Some specs will use interesting textiles and woods, giving it a bit more character than the rather drab appearance provided in these photos. The CX-60 is a two-row vehicle, by the way, although it's about six inches longer than our market's 2022 Mazda CX-5.What Does This Mean for Us?If all of this sounds a little too fantastical for an upcoming American-market Mazda, you're right. The bad news is that we won't get the CX-60. What we will get is the slightly larger CX-70, which will be related to the CX-60 and share many of its powertrains. It's unlikely that either of these I-6s will arrive on these shores, but it's possible a non-Skyactiv-X gasoline I-6 might arrive with the same 3.0-liter displacement. Meanwhile, it's a safe bet that our CX-70 PHEV will match or exceed the CX-60's 323-hp rating.So, good news, bad news, and something to look forward to.
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Looking to deck out your Tesla with carbon-fiber dress-up bits? A new lineup of carbon parts from Unplugged Performance bring more than an extra dash of splash—they're manufactured by none other than Koenigsegg. Yes, that Koenigsegg, the hypercar manufacturer behind crazed top-speed runs and exotic (internal-combustion) engine technologies.This collaboration, dubbed UP x KAM, in reference to Koenigsegg Advanced Manufacturing, kicks off with carbon-fiber spoilers for the Tesla Model 3, Model Y, Model S, and Model X, as well as wider front fenders and a "high-downforce" spoiler for the Model 3 specifically. More parts are promised later this year.While the parts themselves cost significantly less than, say, one entire Koenigsegg hypercar, these aren't Pep Boys bits. The regular spoilers for the Model 3 and Y run $1,745 apiece and are claimed to aid each vehicle's aero efficiency. The "long-tail" spoilers for the Model S sedan and X SUV cost a cool $2,495. And those wider Ascension R front fenders for the Model 3? Those are listed at an eye-popping $8,845; to be fair, the lightweight wings lend the Model 3 a spicy vibe while their 0.8-inch extra width helps accommodate up to 315-section tires, compared to the biggest a regular 3 can comfortably swallow, 275 to 295s. Unplugged Performance also claims the fenders, when used in collaboration with other Ascension-R front-end parts, help with downforce.Every component comes with a nifty UP x KAM sticker denoting the Koenigsegg, er, koennection, and each piece is handmade. Quantities of these first-run products are limited, so if you want some for your Tesla, you better hurry. Unplugged Performance also has its own assortment of exterior upgrades for Teslas, in case you miss out.
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