A California Highway Patrol officer waved a suspected speeder to the side of the road, prompting a convoy of trucks and SUVs to stop on the shoulder of a dusty, two-lane highway. He generously let them go, but a straggler, rushing to catch up with the rest of the pack, immediately crossed the sights of the CHP's radar gun and was picked off without mercy. The rest of the vehicles scampered away, sorry to have lost of one of their own but grateful to be continuing on their journey. Just another day during Truckin's Truck-and-SUV-of-the-Year testing.
This year we put the auto industry's newest and updated vehicles through their paces to see which truck, and which SUV, would rise to the top. Meet our candidates: On the truck side we have the redesigned Chevrolet Silverado and it's siblings the new Chevrolet Avalanche and GMC Sierra; Ford's F-150 and redesigned Explorer Sport Trac; the Dodge Ram; and Nissan's Titan. In the SUV corner there is the redesigned Chevrolet Tahoe; the brand-new Chrysler Aspen and Dodge Nitro; the redesigned Ford Expedition EL; and the all-new Toyota FJ Cruiser.
Normally, we only test vehicles that are brand new or significantly redesigned for the 2007 model year. This formula broke down due to the fact that only GM had vehicles available that were new from the ground up. So we added more vehicles to the truck evaluation (the face-lifted Titan and F-150) and invoked a little known Truckin' rule that any vehicle with a truck bed is a truck (the Avalanche and Sport Trac). Every vehicle was an '07 except for the F-150, which was an '06. The reason for this is that the refreshed 2007 model was not ready, and we couldn't wait for it.
Our evaluation involved daily commuting, 1/4-mile acceleration and braking runs, and a three-day road trip. We rotated among each of the 12 vehicles over a two-week period, keeping score and taking notes of our impressions along the way. The road trip took us from our HQ in Anaheim, California, to Death Valley National Park; then to Whitney Portal in the Sierra Mountains; an off-road detour onto sandy dunes; and finally, home. This trek took us from the lowest point in the Western Hemisphere (282 feet below sea level in Badwater, Death Valley) to the trailhead for the highest point in the Lower 48 states (the 14,505-foot-tall Mount Whitney).
Overall, we logged approximately 1,300 miles on high-speed interstates, in bumper-to-bumper traffic jams, along sparse two-lane highways, across straight and flat terrain, through windy mountain roads, and in outdoor temperatures that ranged from 58 to 100 degrees. Yes, there were mishaps in addition to our minor brush with the law, but none that the auto manufacturers who loaned us their vehicles for testing need to worry about: only two flat tires, and one mistakenly left behind editor, who snoozed during a roadside break. (Like we said before...just another day.)
Want to know which vehicles earned the monikers Truck of the Year and SUV of the Year? Then read on.