17 Fun Facts You Never Knew About The Ford F-Series

The first fun fact is regarding the bumper. Ford designed a front bumper for the F Series that was so wonderfully created, that they never changed it. It’s a bumper design that has lasted at least 20 years and is currently one of the longest-running parts that the F Series has to offer. 

Originally, the F Series was being advertised with a separate name. The promotional material had it listed as the “Bonus Built Line” rather than the F Series. Of course, we all know it now as the F Series, but it was one of the first major vehicle designs that Ford was undertaking at the time. 

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Ford began the F Series by naming their designs F-1, F-2, etc. Eventually, they ditched that when the second generation of the F Series came around, instead titling them F-150, F-250, and so on. They also chose to completely move heavier-duty designs to a different division rather than setting them at a higher level in the F Series. 

The F Series was the creator of the very first monster truck. Many people may recognize the name Bigfoot, as it’s known as the first monster truck, created in 1975. However, what you might not know is that Bigfoot was an F-250 model for Ford that just added some ridiculously large tires.

The F Series has continued to be popular as the years have gone by. In the year 2018 alone, Ford was able to sell over one million F Series trucks across the globe. Breaking this statistic down further, Ford would have successfully sold an F Series truck every 30 seconds. It’s no wonder why the F Series is an all-time great line.

Ford doesn’t always just create a design and stick to it like they did with the front bumper. That was an anomaly. Instead, Ford has always tried to improve when necessary. That is the case with their body because they chose to switch their formerly steel cab with an aluminum body. They also placed that new aluminum body on top of a steel frame, which drastically improved the model as a whole. 

The Ford F-150 completely revamped its suspension system back in 1965. The new system changed the entire feeling of the vehicle and made driving it significantly more comfortable. Some were saying that before the new suspension was placed, the F-150 could oftentimes wind up being bouncy or uncomfortable as a whole. 

The first two generations of the F Series didn’t offer any type of all-wheel drive. It wasn’t until the third generation that they began to implement four-wheel drive into their F Series trucks. This happened in 1959, and when it did, it helped improve the traction so that people could be safer in tougher weather or even just uneven surfaces.

Somehow, there was another weird custom vehicle that got inspired by the F Series. Instead of the monster truck, this time it was the “Big Banana Car”. This car was inducted into the Guinness World Record book in 2011 because it was 23 feet in length. The reason this correlates with the F Series is that the “Big Banana Car” had a 1993 Ford F-150 chassis installed. 

There hadn’t been a single pickup truck in the world to offer a crew cab until the Ford F-250 came around in the year 1965. The crew cab, otherwise known as a quad cab, was designed into the F-250 model with four doors. This gave the truck more possibilities in terms of space and how many people could travel inside of one. 

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An F-Series car made its way into NASCAR in 2022. The F-150 model became a “pace vehicle” for a Cup Series race. Weirdly enough, this wasn’t even the first time that Ford was correlated with NASCAR. About a decade before this event, they became the first original equipment manufacturer to put together an EV for a NASCAR race as a pace vehicle. 

The first generation of the F Series was being assembled all across the United States. In total, there were nine separate assembly plants for these trucks. After a while, Ford started to make their specific plants just for the F Series versions. Before, other models and sedans were being created in the plants alongside the F Series. Nowadays, the newest F-150 model is only being assembled in two places, Kansas City and Dearborn, Michigan.

It wasn’t until the year 2021 that Ford chose to up the ante even more with their features and added a hybrid powertrain into the mix. It’s a new type of engine that uses “regenerative braking” to help sustain the battery life. Ford has done everything in their power to protect these guys from going out of style. 

Originally, the F-150 was getting a new design trim. However, after they started putting it together, Ford decided that it might be better off as a separate entity as a whole. That was how the Ford Ranger was created. The Ranger has been in production since 1982, and it all started because they just wanted a new trim of the F-150 model. 

Despite having a reputation for being a strong truck, the Ford F Series has also been reported as being very fast. Car and Driver put together a list in 2022 of the fastest pickup trucks, basing the rankings on their zero-to-60 mph times. By the time they wrapped up testing all of the vehicles, they noticed that nine out of the 19 models found were from the F Series. It even featured the 2001 Ford SVT F-150 Lightning.

Speaking about the F-150 Lightning model, it was thought to be one of the performance models. Because of that, it featured a ton of unique systems and features that wound up pushing it to become one of the most expensive F Series models at the time, starting at over $40,000. 

Ford does everything they can to avoid having their trucks lose value over time. Most of their features are built to sustain them long-term, and it’s the reason why their resale value never really dips low. The F Series has earned the Best Resale Value Award from Kelley Blue Book in four out of five years, ranging from 2018 until 2022. The only year they didn’t win in that span was 2020. 

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