Ford Unveils New Super Duty

Ford Motor Co. unveiled Thursday its redesigned Super Duty pickup -- a heavy-duty truck popular with commercial customers, like contractors -- just as the National Association of Realtors announced that sales of existing U.S. homes fell for the first time in four months.

The 2011 Super Duty pickup has more horsepower and torque, as well as better fuel efficiency, than the outgoing model, Mark Fields, Ford's president of the Americas, said as he revealed the redesigned truck at the Texas State Fairgrounds in Dallas.

"The 2011 Super Duty really offers everything our hardworking customers need," Fields said.

Ford's Super Duty truck, which goes by names such as the F-250, F-350 and F-450, is the heavy-duty version of Ford's popular F-Series pickups.

Taken together, Ford's F-Series pickups have been the best-selling vehicle line in the United States for 27 consecutive years.

The popularity of the Super Duty models are an essential part of the F-Series' success, and typically account for about 40% of total F-Series sales, said Ford sales analyst George Pipas.

But this year, sales of Ford's Super Duty trucks have suffered because of a national recession that has socked the housing and construction markets.

That trouble could continue, too.

On Thursday, U.S. existing home sales fell 2.7% in August as an increase in buying, driven partly by an $8,000 tax credit for first-time home buyers, eased after four consecutive monthly gains.

For the first eight months of the year, total F-Series sales declined 27.3% to 261,546, according to Autodata Corp.

Super Duty sales over the same period declined 41%, to 82,000 pickups, Pipas said.

The new version of the Super Duty truck won't go on sale until the second quarter of next year -- enough time, Ford executives said, for the national economy, the housing market and the commercial truck market to begin recovering.