Size matters

This is biiiig, man. And powerful. And comfortable. And safe. And a pleasure to drive - on road and off. Paolo Rossetti finds that he can load piles of stuff onto a Ford F-150 and will not even whimper

The bestselling vehicle line in America for the past three decades has not been a family sedan or SUV, but a pickup - this pick-up: the famed F-series.

Granted, that sale record includes not only the F-150 but also the Super Duty rigs and even commercial-use chassis cabs. However, the half-ton F-150 has always been the bestseller.

Last revamped in 2004, and again for 2008, the F-150 caters to the contemporary pickup consumer.

These folks are not anymore the stereotypical red-neck farmer Sonny Boy Jr and his sister Daisy-Lou Lilly; modern owners are as likely to use a pickup for commuting and family hauling as for ranching duties.

In the UAE this is even clearer - the Ford F-150, although 100 per cent capable, is hardly seen carting around animals or fodder; its imposing presence is instead noticed presiding over corporate parking lots and cruising the corniche at night.

And that's also why some of the most popular versions sold here are the crew-cab-style trucks over standard and extended-cab versions.

In fact, at the time of my test drive, I went from being impressed at the exterior to being flabbergasted by the interior!

As you walk around the Ford F-150, the finely-designed lines work well with the sheer size of this mammoth - it is tall, it is long, the engine compartment is huge and lets the imagination run riot as to what enormous power may lie beneath.

I particularly liked the front lights and the classic Ford grille - beautiful. I appreciated less the plastic bumpers, perhaps wishing they were stronger and more hardcore.

But as you open the door and step inside (well, step up-side!) the lust for "hardcore" dissipates, and instead an appreciative "Oh, yeah" escaped me - very well finished cab!

Actually, this I felt was the best feature of this pick-up; it is definitely on par if not more comfortable than a regular sedan! Gone are the days of roughing it in a pick-up, at least, not in a Ford pick-up!

Of course, this leads to the question: Why a pick-up anyway if you're going to have a smooth ride, quiet user-friendly cab and easy-to-drive demeanour?

Well, why not? What's wrong with including comfort in what is at heart a hard-working truck easily capable of hauling a half-tonne of sand or a couple of quad bikes right there in the bed?

Finally! And Ford has spearheaded this, and perhaps even gone a little overboard - the F-Series has a bewildering 75 different styles to choose from.

The 2008 Ford F-150 sees incremental changes over the earlier year models, mostly a question of shifting trims and accessories.

The F-150's main engine is the 5.4-litre Triton V8 that offers an impressive 11,000-pound maximum tow rating.

Performance on the street won't disappoint you either. The 5.4 puts out an awesome 300 horsepower and 365 pound-feet of torque, and leaning a bit heavily on the accelerator will spin the rear wheels like nothing (with an empty bed).

I naively did just that in an empty parking lot and the next thing I knew I was facing the other way! The truck just spun 180°in a heartbeat, leaving me feeling very foolish and hoping that no one had seen me!

That's what a V8 in the front and nothing but air in the back will do to you from a standing start. However, on road I found that this characteristic did not manifest itself.

Understandably, I was a little worried about the light rear, but with speed the lightness disappears and cornering, braking and accelerating were very stable.

The 2008 Ford F-150 full-size pickup truck is available in three body styles: regular cab, extended cab ("SuperCab") and crew cab ("SuperCrew").

Cargo box size choices vary as well: regular cabs come with a 6.5-foot or 8-foot cargo bed, while SuperCabs can have either of those or a garage-friendly 5.5-footer.

The SuperCrew can have either the 5.5-foot or 6.5-foot bed. Reverse-opening rear doors are standard on regular and SuperCabs for easier cab access, while SuperCrews have four full-size doors.

No fewer than eight trim levels are offered: base XL, sporty STX, popularly equipped XLT, rugged FX2/FX4, luxurious Lariat, plusher Lariat Limited, even fancier King Ranch, and a black and chrome Harley-Davidson edition (which has a very special engine: supercharged to 450hp and 500 lb-ft of torque!).

I drove the Lariat trim, and the interior was just superb. Very comfortable seating positions for driver and all four passengers, an excellent feeling of safety and road visibility, and just the sheer size of the truck made other motorists give us a wide berth! Antilock disc brakes are standard across the board, but no traction control for 4x4 versions (hence the 180° spin!).

Unlike most of its competitors, the F-150 does not offer side airbags or stability control - the latter a key feature for avoiding accidents in the first place.

That said, frontal-impact testing by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration resulted in a perfect five-star rating. In frontal-offset crash testing conducted by the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, the F-150 earned a rating of "Good", the highest available.

Thanks to its stiff frame, double-wishbone front suspension and rack-and-pinion steering, the Ford F-150 delivers what I thought were impressive ride and handling dynamics for a full-size truck.

The truck's hefty curb weight and light rear end were not factors that affected the drive at all, and although I could not find enough stuff to load into the bed, I did transport two families' camping and barbecueing gear, including tables and a swing set - yes, we tried to load as much as possible, quite the opposite of our usual packing style! - and we tied everything down with rope and off we went: couldn't even feel it, and the F-150 just laughed at us.

Having focused so much on the truck's good looks, available power and interior comforts, and despite our wimpy attempt to increase the payload, let me assure you that the Ford F-150 at heart is still a hard-hat truck.

This truck will work day after day in the toughest conditions a construction site foreman can throw at it: bouncing over massive potholes fully laden, plus a sweaty crew of five big workers, and all their equipment, powering over sand tracks and billowing clouds of dust, and it has been engineered to get the job done.

So, whether to complement a style-setting urban lifestyle, or to support an active family, or to work in the field, I felt the F-150 is a tough truck to beat.

The F-Series has been the No 1 US vehicle for almost 30 years for good reasons, and all of those apply to us here in the UAE.