jay-leno-shows-off-his-knowledge-trucks-new-video

Jay Leno Shows Off His Knowledge for Trucks in New Video

Jay Leno continued his streak of getting access to vehicles that car enthusiasts would sell their second-born to get their hands on. He hopped into a Tesla Cybertruck to tool around the Tesla factory with Elon Musk a few weeks ago. This time, the former Tonight Show host got to take a Ford concept truck for a spin.

Ford invited Jay Leno to check out its F-100 Eluminator concept truck on the most recent episode of Jay Leno’s Garage. The Eluminator matches new-school tech with old-school cool. The automaker first showed off the truck a few weeks ago but, until now, no one we haven’t seen it in action. Ford let Leno take it out for a test drive.

But what makes this truck so special?

Ford designed the Eluminator to look like a 1978 F-100, but under the hood, the company filled it with their latest electronic motors and equipment. Two e-crate motors give the truck a healthy 480 horsepower and 634 foot-pounds of torque, Ford said. The 1978 Ford-100 tops out at 220 horsepower. The same batteries in the 2021 Mustang Mach-E GT Performance Edition power the Eluminator.

Jay Leno said this is the next evolution in hot rod culture: Electric crate motors inside vintage cars and trucks.

“It just takes hot-rodding in a whole new direction,” Leno said. “When I was a kid, it was flat-head engines, and then it was overhead-valve engines. And then guys started putting engineers in the back of the Barracudas. … So now they’ve made the move to electric. And then pretty much electrify any Ford vehicle at this point with this engine.”

You can see the truck in action in the video below.

Ford Doubles Production of Electric Trucks

You won’t be about to purchase the F-100 Eluminator. It’s only a concept car, but Ford is doubling down on the company’s commitment to electric trucks. Literally. The company is doubling its production of the Ford F-150 Lightning and other electric vehicles after strong demand.

Ford CEO Jim Farley told Jim Cramer in December that 200,000 people had put down a $100 reservation for the right to buy an F-150 Lightning. Purchase orders of the car started in January with delivery scheduled in May.

“With nearly 200,000 reservations, our teams are working hard and creatively to break production constraints to get more F-150 Lightning trucks into the hands of our customers,” said Kumar Galhotra, a Ford executive in a press release. “The reality is clear: People are ready for an all-electric F-150, and Ford is pulling out all the stops to scale our operations and increase production capacity.”

The base model F-150 Lightning costs just below $40,000.

The automaker is also investing more than $30 billion in electric vehicle tech through 2025.