Continued: Car of the year: Ford F-150 pickup

The redesigned 2009 Ford F-150 starts rolling into dealerships at an inauspicious time to launch a new pickup. The light-truck market has gone China Syndrome; the chief executives of the Detroit Three are groveling in their pinstripes on Capitol Hill; and there is, in the air, a diffuse but real sense of repudiation toward full-size pickups.

The F-150, perennially the bestselling vehicle in America, has fallen on hard times. Sales are down 25 percent this year, and Ford will be lucky to move 500,000 F-150s this year, down from around 700,000 in 2006. Nearly gone are the high-riding carbon cowboys in their shiny pickups, the all-hat poseurs, the so-called "never-never" buyers (never tow, never haul).

Yes, Dearborn has its troubles, but this is the best pickup on God's little acre. Yes, the Japanese have beaten up on the domestics, but Toyota and Nissan only wish they knew how to build a full-sizer as tight, as tough, as well-sorted, as keen and mean as the thing behind the Blue Oval. I mean, people, it isn't even close.

My Car of the Year is a truck.

I don't own a gun rack, and I'd like to shoot Toby Keith out of the nearest cannon, so a pickup has to go a long way to blow my mind. What the Ford F-150 does is simply to exceed expectations by a few degrees in every category.

It rides a little more smoothly. It's a little quieter. It's more agile in day-to-day driving and more of a draft horse when you need it to haul or tow. It's better-equipped. When you add all those margins up, the Ford is vastly better than anything else in its class.

Take, for example, its bronze-bell solidity. Ford isn't the only truck manufacturer to use hydro-formed, fully boxed high-strength frame rails in the chassis. But it might be the only one that laser-welds the roof seams and body-side panels to the truck's superstructure.

Compared with robotic spot-welding, seam-welding essentially turns the various welded parts into a single piece of steel. The resulting sense of foundry casting isn't something you can exactly measure, or even describe. You slam the door and nothing trembles or rattles. You mat the throttle on the open highway and what you hear in the cabin is a deep, pleasant timbre. Between the fancy engine mounts, the clever tuning of bushings and chassis mounts, and acres of sound deadening, the F-150 has the noise-vibration harshness of a luxury car.

The pickup proprieties have been observed. Three cab styles, four box styles and seven trim levels are available, including the new Platinum series (electronics galore, 20-inch chrome wheels, brushed alloy trims in the cabin, power-deployable running boards, heated/cooled seats, and loads of mirror-polished metal). The F-150 XL regular cab starts at $21,320, whereas a loaded Platinum series SuperCrew 4x4 will approach $50,000.

Three V8 engines are offered: a 5.4-liter three-valve (320 horsepower); a 4.6-liter three-valve (292 horsepower); and a 4.6-liter two-valve (248 horsepower). Mileage is up across the line. The 5.4-liter, backed by a six-speed automatic, returns 14 miles per gallon city and 20 mpg highway in two-wheel-drive form, largely thanks to the new six-speed automatic.

Three quick hits:

• The SuperCrew (four-door) configuration is 6 inches longer in wheelbase and overall, with larger rear doors and rear cabin. With the rear seat flipped up, the truck has 57.6 cubic feet of enclosed cargo space -- more than a lot of midsize sport-utility vehicles or wagons. Rear seating is the size of a squash court.

• Ford rules the cargo box: Among the many fun features are a deployable side-step; a fold-out tailgate step with assist handle; and a set of slide-out tool trays or drawers built into the lower quarter panel.

• Trailering: The F-150 is rated for 11,300 pounds of towing, which is 600 pounds more than a comparable Chevy 1500. Stability control is standard, as is trailer-sway control (the system will null out uncontrolled oscillations in the trailer using selective braking).

Integrated trailer-brake control also is offered, replacing those clunky plug-in modules that you install under the dash. Another option: a reverse camera. Don't back up in the Whole Foods parking lot without it.

Aesthetic and athletic, with tremendous build quality and dozens of fall-in-love features, the F-150 refutes the easy dismissal of American automaking as somehow feckless and inefficient. These days, selling lots of pickups may be harder. But I do believe the F-150 will survive just fine.