Ford F-150 becomes first full-size pickup to sweep IIHS top safety honors

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Updated Apr 19, 2016

The 2016 Ford F-150 has earned the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety’s (IIHS) Top Safety Pick for SuperCrew and SuperCab configurations, the only large pickup to earn such a distinction.

Raj Nair, Ford executive vice president, Global Product Development, and chief technical officer, says the company set its sights on best in class crash performance when engineers began designing the current generation of Ford’s flagship pickup.

While many critics wondered whether the aluminum body on the current generation of F-150s would the truck more of a crash liability, Ford says its actually the combination of that body and the truck’s steel frame that enabled its engineers to create the most crash-resistant version of the truck yet.

A cross-functional group of Ford truck veterans worked thousands of hours to deliver improved durability, capability, fuel economy and safety. The team created 31 safety-related innovations—including new structures that manage crash forces, and joining methods that were tested virtually with supercomputer simulations, then retested in Ford’s advanced laboratories.

These innovations include a patented extruded aluminum roof crossmember and additional frame crossmember to help improve crash resilience.

To manage crash forces in the IIHS small overlap front crash test, Ford created a system of innovations that work together to help protect the driver. Nylon hinge pillar reinforcements save weight, and in conjunction with specially designed wheel blockers, work to control crash forces while also providing additional safety.

“The same innovative approach applied to every other attribute of the 2016 F-150 is exemplified in our commitment to safety,” says Nair. “We spent thousands of hours engineering, designing and developing multiple safety features that work together in the event of an accident.”