Southeast Michigan may not be Texas, but we have more than our fair share of big trucks around here. Second only to the Escalades and other full-size SUVs that prowl metro Detroit, heavy-duty pickups like the 2026 Ford F-250 Super Duty are still coveted chariots even in some of America’s wealthiest suburban zip codes. But there’s a flip side to that.
When I’m testing a flashy luxury SUV or fancy sports car, the neighbors will often wander past. They want to know what it is, and more often than not, what it’ll do. Something like an F-250 Super Duty, on the other hand, is a known quantity—even if that quantity tends to be quite large.
Just days before the truck arrived, we learned that the 7.3-liter “Godzilla” V8 had become the truck’s new default engine. To that, I have one thing to say: Hallelujah.
Don’t get me wrong; diesels are awesome machines, and if capability is all that you care about, the Power Stroke is ultimately going to punch harder. You’ll get no argument from me if that’s your use case. But if you’re going to be driving your truck empty or close to it (depending on what you’re hauling, even a full bed in a Super Duty might qualify as “nearly empty” in terms of actual payload), the 7.3 is the engine to get—period.
View Price on AmazonIt may not look like much, but hey, the average American man has to stand on his toes just to get a decent look at this thing anyway. If you’re the DIY maintenance type, you may want to consider investing in a step stool.
Last year, I tested a monster of an F-350—a dual-rear-wheel behemoth that only cleared the door framing of my new carport by a couple of inches. It took sincere effort (writers don’t typically spend their days hauling construction-grade block around) to even scratch the surface of what that truck was capable of, and driving it around unladen didn’t help it put its best foot forward. With no trailer and an empty bed, the diesel always felt underworked and, at the same time, annoyed that it had been asked to show up at all. Despite the temperament its name might imply, Godzilla simply hums along at whatever pace you desire.
The big V8 may be simple, maybe, but not exactly mundane. Its 7.3-liter displacement is impressive on its own, and it produces 430 horsepower and 485 pound-feet of torque. That’s less than you get from the new LT6 in the 2026 Corvette, which is decidedly not a pickup truck, but the pushrod Ford also isn’t as highly stressed as the ‘Vette engine. Meanwhile, the 6.7-liter high-output diesel cranks out an almost incomprehensible 1,200 pound-feet.
Here’s the thing about diesels (just about anything turbocharged, really): You may not need revs to get gobs of torque, but you do need throttle to spin that turbine. That big turbodiesel may not lag much, but Godzilla doesn’t do it at all—nor does it sound like somebody threw a live goose down a garbage disposal. And even if it may be down on raw grunt, the 4.30:1 axle ratio makes Godzilla feel plenty quick.
This time around, I didn’t have any stress tests for the F-250; the biggest item it brought home was a nine-foot Freeman maple that the township’s beautification commission offered after we lost one of our tree-lawn silver maples to old age. Are you even using a truck if you don’t exceed at least one of its cargo dimensions?
My biggest complaint about driving the F-350 last year was its unladen road manners. When you engineer a truck to haul that much weight on the rear axle (and then stick extra tires on it to accommodate more load), you need a correspondingly stiff suspension so that the truck doesn’t droop in the rear when you max out its payload or tongue weight. Sag out back lifts the nose, which makes the nose light (compromising steering response and feel) and reduces stability.
Source: thedrive.com
