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For 30 years, Ford F-Series has been the undisputed leader in the Lone Star State and commands more than a third of Texas' full-size pickup market share. It outsells all General Motors full-size pickups in total as well as the collective full-size entries of Dodge, Toyota and Nissan. F-Series increased its market share despite flat sales in 2006 due in part to the decline in new residential construction. Ford aims to fortify its commanding position when the new Super Duty line-up arrives in dealerships in February.

"The new Super Duty line-up is a key component to F-Series' continued dominance in Texas and across the nation," said Mark Fields, Ford's president of The Americas. "Every aspect of the truck is the result of spending a great deal of time listening to our customers. There's no other family of trucks like this."

Ford already has tallied 40,000 dealer orders for the new heavy duty pickups. Super Duty represents 40 percent of F-Series sales, which numbered just under 800,000 last year. More than 725,000 customers already have visited InsideSuperDuty.com, spending more time on the site and viewing more pages than truck customers are known to do on other new product sites.

Although Ford continues to dominate the Texas truck market, the company is well aware that every other player in the segment is gunning for more market share in the state. In fact, all F-Series competitors have a Texas edition truck and unique ads for the market that use local imagery.

"There's no question that the pickup truck market is highly competitive and it's just going to get tougher in 2007 with the new Toyota Tundra and new GM pickups. However, we have no intentions of giving the competition an inch," said Mark Grueber, Ford strategic marketing manager for the Southwest market.

Approximately 150 media members braved ice and snow to travel to Texas and test the Super Duty under inclement conditions, rife with mud and ice, and came away satisfied with the truck's capability.

At the ride-and-drive event, journalists from such diverse publications as Truck Trend , The Houston Sun and Auto Week got a hands-on proof of the new F-450 Super Duty's towing capability, which exceeds 24,000 pounds and its maximum payload of more than 6,000 pounds. The truck's performance capability was heavily influenced by customer feedback. In fact, 90 percent of Super Duty customers tow, and nearly two-thirds use it purely as a work truck.

"There's real demand for that kind of towing power,” said Jeff Dusing, managing editor of RV Xtreme Magazine .