Ford VS. Chevy, and the gloves are coming off.

Truck manufacturers thrive on good old-fashioned smack talk in their advertising and marketing. They love to tackle competitors' claims head-on and boast about their trucks’ capabilities.

But perhaps the best competitive challenge that we've ever heard comes from Tom Stephens, General Motors' vice chairman in charge of global product operations, to crosstown rival Ford. It concerns two trucks that have yet to hit the market: GM's 2011 Chevrolet and GMC Heavy Duty pickups and Ford's 2011 F-Series Super Duty.

"You're going to love our new diesel Duramax engine in the new Heavy Duty," Stephens told PickupTrucks.com at the 2010 North American International Auto Show.

But then, in a powerful statement of confidence in the new haulers, Stephens said, "You know what I want to do to prove it? I want to take our truck and Ford's [new Super Duty] and chain them together back -to-back. Then I want to have them pull against each other. I know our truck will beat theirs."

We asked Stephens three times if he was serious, and he repeated back — very enthusiastically, we might add — what he sees as a spectacular way to prove just how strong GM's new Heavy Duty pickups will be.

Stephens should know the capability of GM's new pickup and its updated Duramax diesel engine. Before he was promoted to his current position, Stephens was executive vice president of GM global powertrain.

So we'd like to take Stephens up on this challenge and offer our impartial services to referee such an event in Texas, the heart of truck country, in an arena where GM and Ford owners can come out and watch. We'll split the venue in half, for each side.

We've informally passed along Stephens’ challenge to Ford, just to let them know GM's position. There's no official response yet, but we think it's certainly gotten their attention.

The rest of the details still need to be worked out. So what do you say GM and Ford? Are you both all in? We know Tom Stephens is.

Stay tuned!

http://news.pickuptrucks.com/2010/01/truck-of-war-gms-vice-chairman-challenges-ford-to-hd-tug-of-war.html

This is going to be good.

i can see in now.. its gonna turn into a free for all at the cowboys stadium and all the ford owners are gonna be so pissed when they loose that they are gonna rip down the stadium.. one can dream.. lol

That will be a good one to watch!! I hope for the sake of my curiousity that Chevy wins!!!

Chaining em up back to back is stupid. It proves nothing but who happens to get traction and who doesnt.

If they wanna do a good comparison, they need to hook em both up to evenly loaded trailers and see who can pull it up a hill faster.

I think Tom Stephens has been watching too much youtube.

true I beleive that that would be a better test of strenghts!! Or maybe just a simple dyno test?

Dyno test would be good, but if he is doing this for publicity (i assume he is) then thats not nearly as entertaining. Depending on what kinda surface he wants to do this on, he is a braver man than I. Unless they did away with the IFS front suspension and didn't tell anyone!

True back to back pull off's are no good. All that proves is who has the better tire or better ground under them an up hill trailer pull would be the best. but we all know the ford will whoop some butt

fordman68 wrote:

True back to back pull off's are no good. All that proves is who has the better tire or better ground under them an up hill trailer pull would be the best. but we all know the ford will whoop some butt

KP i would like to ask who taught about havin more traction?

Um lets see i kinda have known that forever but i did like those Youtube videos cuz they pissed you off so much LOL

and your start mouthin again

Don't do this here boys. Take it elsewhere.

FORDS RULE!!!

johnboggs21 wrote:

Don't do this here boys. Take it elsewhere.

Thank you John.

All opinions and thoughts are welcome here, as are all truck manufacturers, so please keep that in mind gentlemen. If you two want to yell at each other, please do it in person or through PM. Thank you.

johnboggs21 wrote:

Chaining em up back to back is stupid. It proves nothing but who happens to get traction and who doesnt.

If they wanna do a good comparison, they need to hook em both up to evenly loaded trailers and see who can pull it up a hill faster.

I think Tom Stephens has been watching too much youtube.

Agreed. A pull off, drag race, dyno run, stopping test, and fuel economy test would be a much better comparison. Still, if they do chain them together, it would be great to watch.

if seen em hooked to sleds b4 lol