2017 Motor Trend Truck of the Year Introduction

At their core, pickup trucks are big, rugged cars with big boxes tacked on the back. They can perform big and important tasks, such as tugging a boat to a Shasta Lake bachelor party. Or the more mundane chore of moving your compadre's couch in exchange for pizza. It's the storylines we as drivers weave that make the pickup so fascinating.

This year's Truck of the Year stable of all-new or significantly revised trucks includes the gasoline-engine versions of the Nissan Titan. It's not quite the half-ton household nameplate as the Silverado, Ram 1500, or F-150. It also has taken more than a decade for the second-generation Titan to come into being.

And although Nissan is flashing the underdog card, we have the perennial heavyweight F-150, too. It flaunts a new EcoBoost V-6 and 10-speed automatic transmission. Fast fact: Three previous iterations of the F-150 were named our Truck of the Year during the first-generation Titan's lifespan.

Anchoring the weighty end of the seesaw are the frenemies Ford Super Duty and Ram Heavy Duty. One (Ram) was the first to touch 900 lb-ft of torque for a mainstream vehicle, and it boasts a ridiculous maximum towing number (31,210 pounds). The Super Duty, overhauled for the first time since the first time Monica Lewinsky was a trending topic, throws down the gauntlet with even more twist and trailering ridiculousness (925 lb-ft and 32,500 pounds on the F-450).

Two disturbers of the truck peace are present, as well. The five-eighths-ton tweener Nissan Titan XD returns for a second straight year, this time with a burly gas V-8 to complement the rorty Cummins V-8 we've already tested. The Honda Ridgeline, a big disrupter in the small-truck arena and the 2006 TOTY winner, continues forging its own unruly path with unibody assembly, multilink rear suspension, and standard front-wheel drive.

Our bumper-pull typical trailer weights established by class are back—3,000 pounds for the Ridgeline, 7,000 pounds for the conventional light-duty (plus Titan XD), and 10,000 pounds for three-quarter-ton and up. A 30,000-pound gooseneck trailer makes a special appearance, as does a 7,500-pound skid-steer loader/trailer combo that we towed on the fun portion of Arizona's Highway 68, aka SAE J2807's Davis Dam grade. After two weeks packed with instrumented testing, rigorous driving and evaluating, and downhome tailgating, we arrive at the 2017Motor TrendTruck of the Year.

2017 Truck of the Year Contenders

• Nissan Titan
• Ram 2500/3500 HD
• Nissan Titan XD

2017 Truck of the Year Finalists

• Ford F-150
• Honda Ridgeline
• Ford Super Duty

Advancement in Design

Well-executed exterior and interior styling, innovative vehicle packaging, and a good selection and use of materials.

Value

Each vehicle's price and equipment levels compared with those of vehicles in the same market segment.

Performance of Intended Function

How well the vehicle does the job its planners, designers, and engineers intended it to do.

Efficiency

Fuel efficiency and carbon footprint size relative to the vehicle's competitive set.

Safety

The ability to help avoid a crash, plus secondary safety measures to protect occupants during an accident.

Engineering Excellence

Total vehicle concept and execution; clever solutions to packaging, manufacturing, and dynamics; and cost-effective technology that benefits consumers.

FCA's Arizona Proving Ground is a world-class vehicle evaluation facility with every manner of test surface and condition you could imagine. In past OTY contests, we've attempted top-speed blasts on the 5-mile oval and run amok on the surrounding miles of dirt roads, but for Truck of the Year, what we really needed was the perfectly flat, 16.9-acre asphalt lake and four precision-ballasted trailers.

We don't drive over the Davis Dam, per se, but Highway 68 linking Bullhead City and Kingman is the inspiration for the SAE J2807 standard. It's more than 11 miles to climb up and over the 3,571-foot summit at Union Pass. A skid-steer loader secured to a trailer offers a roughly 7,500-pound towing challenge for the able trucks. This test quickly separates contenders from pretenders.

Our 21.5-mile road loop navigated Kingman, Arizona, then climbed into the nearby foothills. The 1,785-foot elevation gain with a series of twists and turns was an excellent way to evaluate transmission performance and handling. Upon descent, our loop joined Interstate 40 back into Kingman—a short stretch perfect for testing wind and road noise and the infotainment systems.

• Ed Loh- Editor-in-chief
• Mark Rechtin- Executive editor
• Jonny Lieberman- Senior features editor
• Kim Reynolds- Testing director
• Chris Walton- Road test editor
• Scott Evans- Associate editor
• Benson Kong- Associate road test editor