Hell, Michigan, is a tiny, unincorporated community that has become a Mecca of sorts for bikers, specifically Harley riders. We swung by there on a Monday, during our winding drive through the countryside, in hopes of seeing what kind of response the truck would get from the local Harley fans. However, Monday is apparently a slow day in Hell. We bought an ice-cream cone at Screams-which proved that a snowball does have a chance in Hell. Then, we took some photos and moved on. We used Hell as the epicenter for our explorations of the Michigan countryside as we navigated two-lane highways and the nearby freeway. The fact that traffic flows very... genteelly in Michigan made it difficult to really stretch the truck's legs on the open road, which forced us to fall back into a series of impromptu acceleration tests of stoplight-to-30, stop sign-to-40, onramp-to-50, pass-the-slowpoke-to-70 on the freeway.
In retrospect, this reflects a more realistic driving style, with a bit of muscle-car lightning and thunder rolling underneath the hood. The supercharger dished out the torque when we needed it and the four-speed automatic transmission shifted timely and decisively. That engine sounds more like a distant but closing storm front, thanks to the truck's moderately rowdy exhaust note. That may be a bit more fun than the exhaust on Roush's F-150, but hardly the screamer on the S331. The truck handled great on its 22-inch wheels and Pirelli P275/45R22 tires, thanks to the sport-tuned suspension. It didn't feel quite as sporty as the Saleen truck, but definitely didn't present the more frighteningly wallowy prospects of a suspension tuned to haul cargo rather than to haul ass.
Our time on the dyno was troubling. Our first power run resulted in numbers far lower than the 380 hp that we had expected at the wheels. We let the truck cool down and gave it another shot, getting only 337 hp. The guys at Livernois said they couldn't get any more out of it, without discarding the rather restrictive airbox or doing a custom tune. We did confirm on the dyno, not the street, that the speed limiter kicks in at 120 mph.
The truck's Dark Amethyst body color looks black, until the purplish sparkles were brought out by light that strikes it just so. Inside, the Harley-Davidson logo was incorporated subtly just about everywhere, and the limited-edition badging on the center console confirms the truck's model year, production number, and Vehicle Identification Number (VIN). The seemingly textured, silver-faced instruments looked spot-on. The model that we rode was well equipped and cost in the neighborhood of mid $40,000. That's competitive with the other F-150-based supercharged pickups; Chevy and Dodge don't even offer a blown pickup right now. Short of next year's ground-up redesign of the F-150, the Harley-Davidson Edition and its supercharged version is probably Ford's best opportunity to present a fresh and compelling face to a very competitive 1/2-ton market.