Ford to unveil aluminum-body F-150 at Detroit show: reports

While most major automakers had broadly hinted about what they would unveil at next month's Detroit auto show, Ford has in an unusual move kept its plans under wraps for the auto annual show's opening debut.

However, according to commentators, the likely unveiling could be expected to be a big one - an all-new version of the company's best-selling pick up, the F-150.

They add the vehicle would be far from just a restyled pickup with some additional features. The 2015 Ford F-Series is expected to herald a dramatic shift in a market segment that has bounced back sharply in the last 12 months, with the company launching an aluminum-intensive design that may lighten the vehicle to the tune of hundreds of pounds as against the outgoing pickup. The lighter design would cut fuel consumption by perhaps 5 miles per gallon.

However, according to commentators, the automaker could run into serious problems with a redesign of what had long been America's best-selling vehicle.

They say even though buyers across all segments of the market were demanding better mileage, the question was whether the generally more conservative buyers in the pickup segment would feel comfortable with the major shift from rugged, time-tested steel.

Meanwhile Ford Motor Co would be keen to show that its new, aluminum F-150 pickup had more in common with combat vehicles. The automaker had asked Alcoa Inc, maker of aluminum blast shields for battlefield-bound vehicles, to lend some of its military-grade metal for the vehicle, Bloomberg reported, citing a person who asked not to be identified because the plans were secret.

The sales team at the company would have its hands full as it sought to demonstrate the toughness of aluminum, which is lighter than steel, to pickup buyers who had made F-150 the bedrock of their business. If anything were to go wrong, it would further dent earnings that Ford already was projecting would decline next year and add to the challenges facing Mark Fields, who is likely to take over as the company's next chief executive officer.

At the show last year, he had pledged that Ford would knock off as much as 750 pounds (340 kilograms) out of its next-generation trucks to meet tightening fuel-economy regulations.

Bloomberg quoted Joe Langley a production analyst for reasearcher IHS Automotive as saying in a telephone interview that this was already the most significant debut at the auto show.