The Ford F150 Lariat is the luxury model and, for the time being, sits at the top of the line. Lariat has its own grille design and comes standard with 18-inch wheels. It amplifies the all-new interior with black-on-cream instrumentation, lots of wood trim and brushed metal, a multi-function steering wheel, and a shiny floor shifter mounted in a floor console. A power 40/20/40 split bench seat with seat memory is standard, along with power adjustable floor pedals, an in-dash message center, and climate control. Heated power leather captain's chairs are optional. Lariat 2WD models are available in all three body styles, but 4X4 versions are only available with Styleside fenders. An F150 Lariat SuperCrew 4x4 5.4-liter V8 automatic retails for $35,570.

The new Ford F150 takes off from these five model lines into 26 variations by the time you count two- and four-wheel-drive, short bed, medium bed, and long bed, manual and automatic and the five trimlevels. The nearest competitor has only 12 variations, a fact that Ford hopes will bring more people into its dealerships. In addition to the 26 variants of the Ford F150 within the five model ranges, there are dozens of options, ranging from trailer-towing to interior upgrades to tire and wheel packages, sound systems, five different overhead consoles, and specialty mirrors.
(Later on, a King Ranch version, a Harley-Davidson version, and a 500-horsepower SVT Lightning will be added. Next year, the F-250 and F-350 heavy-duty versions will be introduced, along with the big V10 and the turbodiesel engine.)

All Ford F150s now have the front window style popularized on the F-250 and F-350 Super Duty pickups: a sharp cut in the forward part of the door sheet metal that drops away to allow much clearer viewing of the large rearview mirrors on both sides.
The whole nose is shaped more squarely, the grilles are larger and bolder, the bodyside and cargo box sheet metal is more sculpted, and every bed, no matter which length or style, is two inches taller than previous beds to give more margin when hauling larger cargoes. All models, including the regular cab, have four full-opening doors on the body with storage room and/or seats behind the front seat. The SuperCab doors are larger than the vestigial doors on the standard cab, and of course, the giant SuperCrew has four full-size doors.

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The most notable design feature of the new Ford F150, however, is one you can't see: the fully boxed, partially hydroformed frame, stronger, stiffer, and heavier than any previous Ford pickup frame. It's the seven-crossmember skeleton onto which everything else bolts, and accounts for quite a bit of the nearly 675 pounds more weight of the new F150 compared to the old truck. The frame is nine times more resistant to twisting and 50 percent more resistant to bending than the old C-shaped frame. The front suspension is a completely new double-wishbone style for both 2WD and 4WD versions. The rear suspension now has outboard, rather than inboard, shock absorbers to control the rear end of the truck better in quick maneuvers, along with wider, heavier three-inch leaf springs.
The steering has been changed to a heavy-duty power-assisted rack-and-pinion system. Underneath, are four-wheel ventilated disc brakes with ABS and electronic brake force distribution (EBD), which come standard.