2001 Truck Of The Year

Trucks have come a long way over the past decade. They're no longer regarded as work-only rigs for hauling construction materials during the week and treasures from the swap meet on the weekend.

Today, they're the do-it-all vehicles that not only have to take their owners to work and back, but also haul the kids to little league practice, manage heavy-duty discount warehouse/home improvement runs, and tow the family boat on vacations. Trucks now are expected to have carlike qualities, such as a comfortable interior (including back seats), smooth ride, great sound system, and mountings for that all-important child safety seat.

Selecting the single most significant offering from this year's field of all-new and substantially revised truck models isn't as easy as taking a test drive at Joe Schmoe's Widget Dealer. We drive each rig to hell and back-on-road and off-road. We put them though a battery of tests at the track, then we load them up to payload capacity (in some cases, we purposely overload them as many owners would do) and do it all over again. We crawl in, up, down, through, and over every surface, evaluating the vehicle's quality, and understanding its features. Finally, we pile every editor in and check for leg-, foot-, hip-, and headroom; we push buttons, blast stereos, and make sure our oversize 7-Eleven coffee mug fits in the cupholders. You know, same stuff you'd do.

Take An Insider's Look At The Toughest, Ground-Poundingest Truck Test In Motor Trend's HistoryDown And Dirty With The New Trucks On The BlockFrom the Chevrolet and GMC camps come a pair that represents each brand's new lineup of 31/44- and one-ton trucks-a four-wheel-drive Chevrolet Silverado HD Crew Cab packing the impressive new 6.6L Duramax 6600 turbodiesel/Allison five-speed automatic powertrain combo and a GMC Sierra HD Extended Cab with the new Vortec 8100 V-8. Chevrolet also brought out its latest variant of compact S-10, the Crew Cab model (which, interestingly enough, has been available in South America since '94). A GMC version also is available, though Chevy doesn't offer a clone of the new super-luxury, Yukon Denali-like all-wheel-drive 1500 Sierra C3.

Ford checked in with yet another variation on the F-150 theme-the SuperCrew-along with the new-for-'01 Explorer Sport Trac. Even though Ford markets the Sport Trac as an SUV, it looks and works like a truck to us, so it's here. Mazda's B4000 now offers Ford's excellent 4.0L SOHC V-6 and revamped sheetmetal. Nissan's greatly revised (and optionally supercharged) Frontier was a popular entrant and really looks the part. Toyota came to play with the all-new four-door Tacoma Double Cab and the Tacoma S-Runner sport truck-two completely different takes on the company's popular compact.

With such a diverse group of vehicles, there's no way we can compare a full-size $42,632 31/44-ton Chevrolet to the compact $22,780 Mazda B4000 on a head-to-head basis. Instead, we look toward the significance and execution of each vehicle as compared to others in its class. To play in the Truck of the Year sandbox, the competitors have to be '01 models and on sale by Jan. 1, 2001. In all, we spent weeks in these trucks, leaving no stone unturned and, in some cases, dug up a few beneath the ground on our way up steep off-road trails.

So what happened when all the dust settled? Join us on the following pages to see how these trucks battled it out and to learn which contender is truly worthy of the Motor Trend Golden Calipers, circa 2001.

Test 1: EngineeringAt first glance, trucks look pretty much the same. But beneath the cab and bed is an abundance of hardware that makes each vehicle unique and, in some instances, differentiates them as sport truck, luxury ride, or heavyweight work tool.