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New Ford pickups ride on BFG®February 2, 2004 The new generation Ford F-150 pickup is the biggest news in pickups this year. It rides on BFGoodrich® tires — and so does the sizzling bonspeed version, one of the custom versions of the new F-150 which debuted at the recent SEMA show. To celebrate the new incarnation of a truck that is an American icon, bonspeed's president and founder Brad Fanshaw designed — and his fabrication team built — what might be considered the ultimate pickup truck — a no-holds-barred concept vehicle designed to run on BFGoodrich® tires. Fanshaw had a blend of speed and luxury in mind when he proposed the bonspeed F-150 as a concept vehicle to Ford. The speed would come from a supercharged, 32-valve V8 in an all-out high-performance envelope with full NASCAR brakes and BFGoodrich® tires. 
"I wanted to combine the idea of speed, to celebrate Ford's 100th anniversary, with luxury that's appropriate to high performance," says Fanshaw.The "high-performance" luxury in the cab includes elegant Mulholland Brothers leather-wrapped Recaro seats and a $30,000 sound system. Most of the rest of the package is pure performance in the form of a statement celebrating the arrival of a new version of the Ford F150 — a pickup truck that has long since reached the status of an American icon. "The F-150 is synonymous with Ford," says Fanshaw. "It's almost Americana. When you think of Ford and trucks, you think of the F-150. It's the truck you see on every corner, all over the country." To make it a high-impact concept vehicle, Fanshaw decided on a supercharged V8 with a T56 six-speed manual transmission, a special, Koni coil-over suspension designed and tuned by Detroit Speed and Engineering, 6-piston Baer disc brakes with 15-inch rotors all around. Six-piston, 15-inch discs are not often found outside the racetrack &151; NASCAR in particular. "We wanted to make sure it will really stop," Fanshaw says. "It also has a Fuel Safe fuel cell, a balanced driveshaft and a metal diffuser panel to clean up the airflow at speed." Fanshaw kept the design close to the basic silhouette of the new F150, adding subtle but telling details like brake cooling vents and a carbon-fiber wing. "We created a front fascia with a very large mouth designed to direct air to the intercooler. We gave it a definite bonspeed look but still stayed true to the new F-150." The concept truck that Fanshaw built epitomizes the high performance that Ford trucks have demonstrated over two decades of racing victories in the Baja 1000, where Ford trucks on BFGoodrich tires have won again and again. "I've been using BFGoodrich tires on my vehicles for a long time," Fanshaw says. "Before I founded bonspeed, I was president of Hot Rods by Boyd, and we used BFG's exclusively." For the bonspeed F150, the goal was to make a truck that will handle and perform like a sports car. "We didn't just build a nice-looking concept truck with a trick body. We built it with a real, high-performance suspension, running gear and aerodynamic body sculpting. The bonspeed wheels are a one-off style, and we mounted g-Force T/A®KDW tires, 265/50 in front and 305/50 in the back. "We outfitted it with tires that are capable of living up to the performance of the truck, and that's BFGoodrich. That's what we've always used. Not only do BFGs have the performance and the speed ratings that we want, but also in the sizes that we need. The F-150 has a very large wheel housing. We needed a tire that would give us the width — and the height — as well as the performance we needed." Photos courtesy bonspeed 
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