Blast Off or Shake-Down? The Ford F-150 Tremor.

Yesterday, I spent some time with my niece and nephew.  First we tried to fly a kite, which got to be a bit boring for our tastes, so we moved on to rockets.  Because last year, we used rocket propulsion motors that were perhaps a bit too powerful, we blasted off and consequently lost all but two of our normal rockets (we did locate one in a tree several blocks away, but it was too high for us to get it down).  Instead of anything explosive, yesterday, we played around with an air pressure rocket, which shot up high enough to dazzle the kiddos, but not so high that we had to run for blocks to find where it landed.  The rocket kit recommends 15-18 pumps per launch.  Of course, we had to test that.  My niece insisted that we ought to try 30 pumps, which we did, and then spent several minutes tinkering around with the pump set up to get it working again after overloading it.

Here’s my favorite two kids proudly displaying their air rocket assembly.  I told them to pose like rocketeers.  Apparently, my nephew’s rocketeer stance is akin to his “hulk smash!” pose, and my niece’s looks much like her “Wonder Woman right after finishing spinning around into costume” pose.  It’ll do.

So, with rockets in mind, I decided that my Sunday car browsing should be focused on something with good take off.  I happened upon just the thing in a Ford dealership lot.

About a year ago, when I was at a Jean Knows Cars G7 gathering, I ended up talking with somebody about the possibility of Ford bringing out a truck that was very basic and straight forward, but that had power to spare.  I thought it sounded like a great idea.  I made my share of money selling Ford’s pickups, and aside from stripped down fleet vehicles and older things that people brought in to trade, I almost never saw regular cab trucks.

This F150 Tremor is just that.  It’s a regular cab pickup truck with a short bed (126” wheelbase) and Ford’s 3.5L EcoBoost V6 with 365 HP and 420 lb-ft of torque paired with a 6 speed automatic with tow mode, and wearing the FX appearance package that includes a matte hood decal and matte hockey stripes along the side slab of the truck (they’re hard to see in the photo, what with the black on black, but they’re there, and they look good in person).

The Tremor isn’t made by Ford’s SVT, but it is supposed to be a sport truck akin to the legendary F150 Lightning, which saw its last year in 2004 and featured a supercharged 5.4L V8 that cranked out 380 HP and 450 lb-ft of torque and was paired up with a 4 speed automatic.  Performance wise, the Tremor is stacking up pretty well against the old Lightning, considering it’s doing so with two fewer cylinders.

I love the idea of the Tremor.  When I heard it might be making its way to dealer lots, I thought, great, it’ll be a stripped down little sleeper, lightweight and minimal, but able to pummel anything it comes up against.  I remembered back in 2007 when my dealership got in a bunch of stripped down (and cheap compared to most non-fleet spec Super Duty trucks I sold) F250 Super Duty pickups with regular cabs and the 6.0L Power Stroke Diesel V8 with 325HP and 570 lb-ft of torque for fleet sales… I loved taking those out to drive because they were like diesel hot rods.  So, when I heard about the Tremor, I was excited to think a bunch of rubber-scorching little rigs would soon be hitting the streets.

Then I saw the price tag on the Tremor.  With available incentives in the area, this one comes in with a price of nearly $44,000 (straight sticker price is $45,850).  Granted, this truck is a 4x4 version and comes with goodies like a $1,995 “Tremor Plus Package” that includes navigation, rear view camera, remote start, reverse sensing, a stowable bed extender with tailgate step, and a trailer brake controller (well, that is all nice stuff to have, so okay, fine -that package price is kind of justified), but that total price is so high considering this is supposed to be a stripped down sport truck meant for street performance.

Okay, lets go back and build a 4x2 version and see where we land, shall we?  After all, you don’t really need 4x4 on a street truck.  I do like that Tremor Plus Package, so we’ll keep that.  We still end up with a truck that wears a sticker price of over $40,000 ($42,315 on the 4x2 Tremor I configured on Ford’s website)  Even without that plus package, we’re still over $40,000 until we factor in incentives.  Keep in mind, this is for a regular cab, short bed 4x2 truck.  What gives?

Lets take what we know about the Tremor and compare it to its predecessor, the SVT Lightning.

*my dash cam caught this little bit of Lightning on the road last year*

In 2004, the last year it was available, a Lightning could rack up a sticker price of about $32,000 (which, according to the inflation calculator I used online, amounts to just under $40,000 today).  Well, it’s not so far off, you might think… but keep in mind, the Tremor is not the Lightning.  It’s not super special.  It’s a regular cab, short wheel based truck that’s wearing decals you could get on other F-150’s along with a special sticker that says “Tremor” and a fancy interior.

It’s not like the performance specs blow the Lightning out of the water, because they’re actually lower, although, its 3.5L EcoBoost is probably much easier on gas than the 5.4L V8 was.

Don’t get me wrong… I like Ford’s 3.5L Ecoboost.  I had a blast driving the F150 equipped with it at the EcoBoost challenge last September

And I was absolutely tickled by the zoom of Ford’s Taurus SHO, which also comes with the 3.5L EcoBoost under its hood.  But it’s not that special anymore, because it’s Ford’s go-to engine when they want lots of thrust without having to endure a gas guzzler tax.  Maybe if the Special Vehicle Team tweaked it to get even more out of it, one could justify acting like this truck is some extraordinary, whoopity-doo thing, but it’s not -at least not at the price they’re asking.  One of the things I thought was going to be great about the Tremor was going to be its price point, which I expected would be cheap.  To be frank, the price point here sucks  …and that sucks, because this is a beautiful little truck; but it’s just too much money.

Come on, Ford, you know that eventually, you’d get that money anyway.  I mean, there are ways to justify that asking price, but as it sits, this truck doesn’t do it.  Truck buyers are always the ones who splash out big time in the aftermarket accessories department.  You can’t throw that sticker price on the truck and expect people to pay it unless they figure it was their idea to start with, and that would mean a highly customized rig that is INDIVIDUALLY CONFIGURED.  Really Ford, make your killing in aftermarket and bolt-on sales, but let buyers have their hot rod pick up starter pack at an affordable price first.  Then, even if the truck passes to somebody else’s hands via used sales after its first owner moves on, you’re still likely to get the secondary buyer coming in for goodies to add on.  Either that, or make this truck so smashing that it really stands out among its peers both on the dealer lot and out of it.

Don’t want to sell cheap little rockets for people to configure themselves?  Fine, then the Tremor should have been handed over to the SVT for massaging and tweaking to make it an opposite, but equally elite compliment to the SVT’s already flippin’ awesome truck, the Raptor, (which one could justify the price tag on, by the way, based on all its crazy capability and in your face styling swagger).  The Raptor, like the Tremor, is a toy.. But it’s a toy with real capabilities that can stretch to and beyond handling what most buyers will actually use it for… it just also happens to be capable of competing in the Baja 1000 even as it actually only is used to haul mulch and lumber home from Lowes or Menards.  The Tremor isn’t the thick-necked brute that the Raptor is… It’s definitely a toy, but its area of specialty suits a much narrower band of capability and use.  The aspects of the Tremor that make it a sport truck just aren’t in as sharp contrast as they should be compared to any other F150.  Because of that, the price seems too much in exchange for too little.

But I’ll give credit where credit is due.  The Tremor is a little rocket, as anything with that 3.5L EcoBoost under its hood would be.   It just hasn't reached that rarefied air that its predecessor, the Lightning, or its brawny big brother, the Raptor has achieved.