Americans can't get enough of Ford's F-150 pickup truck. It's been the best-selling vehicle in the US of A for more than three decades. But don't be fooled into thinking they're used only for hard work out on the range or job site. You're just as likely to see these things in the big city, and no matter where you see them, most people buying them want the ability to haul a 10,000 pound horse trailer without giving up the finer things in life.
For them, Ford offers the King Ranch and Platinum versions of the F-150. It's aimed squarely at rigs from the boys across town. Chevrolet offers the High Country Silverado, RAM has an oh-my-God-how-many-cows-died-to-bring-me-all-this-leather version of its 1500 called the Longhorn—both go for $47,000 and up. But there's a level even beyond that, the uber-luxurious truck.
See, in the venn diagram that is the American car market, there is a ton of overlap between People With Lots of Money and People Who Want A Pickup. "We haven't found a ceiling for luxury trucks yet," a company spokesman says. And so Ford offers the top-shelf F-150 Limited.
Everything you might ever want in a truck, and a few you never thought to ask for. In fact, the only option to choose is the towing package, in case you want to actually haul something. And it's all about appearances: The interior's got a bevy of luxuries like "Mojave leather" seats, fiddleback eucalyptus wood accents like those in the Bentley Continental GT, and a custom instrument cluster. It comes with Ford's 3.5-liter EcoBoost V6 engine, and "Limited" badging everywhere means the Joneses will know you spared no expense on your boat-hauler.
Just about the only thing that's limited here is the number of people that can afford it. Ford wouldn't pin down a price, but expect the Limited to land in the high-sixty thousand dollar range. For that price, you could buy a base-level F-150 and a Subaru BRZ sports car, and still have some cash left over. Or a super-luxe Mercedes E400 sedan. Or a 700-horsepower Challenger Hellcat.
So how might people justify buying the Limited? Because it's a truck, and they can do truck things with it.
"You can make a high-end truck, but it still has to be a truck," says Karl Brauer, an automotive analyst for Kelly Blue Book. "It has to have truck functionality. These guys have big ranches, they tow horses, they go to work sites."
The luxury truck market is huge and massively profitable. According to Chevrolet, more than 30 percent of pickup trucks are priced north of $40,000. Adding fancy leather and Australian wood doesn't cost as much as the premium Ford is charging to add it, making the Limited even more of a moneymaker.
Ford has had high-end F-150's for a while, launching the Harley Davidson edition in 2000 and the Western-themed King Ranch in 2001. The Limited was around for two years starting in 2013 but went away with the 2015 redesign. Now it's back, and Ford says the new F-150 is the most luxurious it's ever made.
"If you compromise the functionality for the premium amenities you lose your market share," says Brauer. As long as the luxe truck can still tow 10,000 pounds—and Ford is quick to insist it can—you just might have a hit on your hands.
