Car Gazing
Special truck's style is 'bad to the bone'
By Derek Price
It's ironic that pickup trucks, once considered the homely workhorses of blue-collar America, now tout refinement as a selling point. With each passing year come more car-like interiors, smoother suspensions, and better engines that make trucks seem just a little bit – dare I say it – wimpier.
At least there's one pickup that spits in the face of refinement. With a raucous, thunderous exhaust note, attention-grabbing paint scheme, and miles of gaudy chrome trim, this truck rides into town with the coarse, all-American style of Marlon Brando and James Dean. It's no sissy truck.
It's the Ford F-150 Harley-Davidson Edition, a limited production pickup designed to have the classic functionality of a Ford truck and the rebellious style of a Harley motorcycle. The formula is simple: start with a tried-and-true F-150, then slather the interior with black leather, add a Harley-Davidson logo to everything in sight, and pour on enough chrome to make a boatload of harmonicas. To top it off, add a wild, two-tone paint scheme and strap a supercharger to Ford's monster 5.4-liter Triton V8.
The result is a truck that turns heads wherever it goes for both its wicked looks and its pavement-shaking sound. If ever a pickup were born to be wild, this is it.
At the heart of this road-hogging beast is a terrific engine – if your idea of terrific is big, loud, and powerful – that makes a deep, throaty sound you can literally feel through the seat. Step on the gas and you're instantly shoved back by 340 horsepower and an impressive 425 foot-pounds of torque, which slurps an equally impressive amount of fuel for a pathetic 12 miles per gallon around town.
This truck is all about style, not practicality, though, and it has attitude out the wazoo. Its wonderfully tasteless cabin doesn't aim to be polite or subtle, instead opting for an in-your-face barrage of Harley logos peppered throughout the leather-clad interior. Like everything else about the Harley truck, the look is loud – really loud – with a two-tone color scheme that matches the black and gray paint job.
That doesn't mean the cabin is boorish, however. It's actually pretty comfortable and packed with amenities, like a power sliding sunroof and great-sounding stereo that's perfect for cranking up Steppenwolf tunes. All Harley edition trucks are four-door SuperCrew models, so even the back seat is roomy and pleasant.
On the downside, the grating drone of the engine and exhaust is atrocious on the highway, and at 70 miles an hour you have to raise your voice just to talk to the front-seat passenger. It's certainly no luxury cruiser.
But things with the Harley badge aren't meant to be luxurious and quiet. They're built as a noisy, stylish homage to the open road and American freedom, for driving with wind in your hair, rock music in the air, and a defiant smile on your face. At that, this truck excels.
(Derek Price is a newspaper editor and freelance writer living in Texas.
Contact him at dprice@cargazingonline.com)
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