On Saturday, August 17th, 2013 the NASCAR truck race at Michigan International Speedway will be paced by a pickup truck. The spiritual successor to the F-150 Lightning, the Tremor, will be the official pace truck of the vehicle. It is a bit of a coming-out party for a vehicle that has really been seen all that much by the public.
Ford’s SVT division used to build a F-150 pickup truck designed for the street, and not off-road. It was the Lightning, and for its fans it was one of the holy grails in truck-dom. But with the redesigned F-150 that came a few years back, SVT went a different direction and decided to build its next F-150 as a road-going Baja truck. That vehicle became the F-150 Raptor, and despite being quite bonkers is actually an amazing vehicle.
2014 F-150 Tremor in Pace Truck livery.
People who enjoyed the Lightning did not think the new Raptor was a truck worthy of the SVT badging. For 2014, they have introduced the F-150 Tremor, and from its design it is clearly supposed to be the spiritual successor to the Lightning. In comparison, the stock Lightning made 360hp in stock 2nd generation trim.
The truck sports the company’s 3.5L EcoBoost engine making 365hp and 420lb/ft of torque. In the Explorer Sport, the engine is quite the performer. Put it into a lighter weight F-150 platform and drop the 4WD system and it should be quite the hoot to drive. Undoubtedly, the aftermarket tuners will get ahold of this truck and make some serious gains out of it.
While the 2WD version is definitely a baby Lightning, the 4WD version would be a spiritual successor to the GMC Syclone.
According to Ford, this is Tremor Week, with events planned all week around the F-150 Tremor, including an appearance on Woodward Ave this Sunday for the Dream Cruise.
