FRANKFORT: Ford will invest $1.3 billion into the Kentucky Truck Plant to build the aluminum-bodied 2017 F-Series Super Duty pickup, and the expansion will add 2,000 jobs there. The factory will use the cash to construct a new body shop, retool machinery to produce the truck, and perform some facility upgrades.
The Kentucky Truck Plant is vital to Ford’s success in the truck market and already produces the F-250, F-350, F-450, and F-550 Super Duty models; the Expedition; and Lincoln Navigator. Demand is so high for the pickups, the company only shut the factory down for a week this summer, which is shorter than the usual break. Ford also invested $80 million there in 2014 to further boost pickup assembly.
The 2017 Super Duty follows the latest generation F-150 in the move to an aluminum body, and it saves up to 350 pounds on the new heavy-duty model. Ford claims that the engineers used some of the potential weight loss to strengthen the truck. The frame is now 95 percent high-strength steel and is 24 times stiffer than the outgoing version. The engine options remain the 6.2-liter V8, 6.8-liter V10, and 6.7-liter diesel V8, but the automaker says that it improved all of them.
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