(Bloomberg) -- Ford Motor Co. added more structural protection to the 2016 F-150 SuperCab to improve the pickup’s safety rating to “good” from “marginal” in the latest crash tests by an insurer group.

The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety tested the F-150 SuperCab as well as two body styles of pickups each from General Motors Co., Toyota Motor Corp. and Fiat Chrysler Automobiles NA. Only the Ford truck received a “good” rating in a 40 miles-per-hour crash designed to mimic a partial head-on collision, according to an IIHS statement Tuesday.

Top Safety Pick

The improved test score for the F-150 SuperCab helped it earn the group’s Top Safety Pick designation, joining the F-150 SuperCrew version. Full-size pickups are among the top selling and most profitable vehicles in the U.S., and safety ratings are critical to the contractors and ranchers who buy them.

“We commend Ford for taking last year’s test results to heart and upgrading protection for the SuperCab occupants in small overlap crashes,” Raul Arbelaez, vice president of the IIHS Vehicle Research Center, said in a statement. “Ford is leading the way among large pickup manufacturers when it comes to protecting people in a range of crashes.”

The F-150 SuperCab is an extended-cab model, with two smaller rear doors and compact second-row seats. The SuperCrew is a crew-cab model, with full-size rear doors and second-row seats.

In the so-called small overlap crash test, GM’s Chevrolet Silverado 1500 Double Cab and GMC Sierra 1500 Double Cab got “acceptable” ratings, as did Toyota’s Tundra Double Cab. Crew Cab versions of the two GM models and the Toyota truck were rated “marginal,” as were FCA’s Ram 1500 Crew Cab and 1500 Quad Cab.

“No single test determines overall, real-world vehicle safety,” Lisa Barrow, a Fiat Chrysler spokeswoman, said in an e-mail. “Every FCA vehicle meets or exceeds all applicable motor-vehicle safety standards.”

Toyota is “evaluating the test results with the goal of finding new ways to continuously improve the performance of Toyota trucks and to further enhance the safety of out vehicles,” Cindy Knight, a spokeswoman for the company, said in an e-mail. The Tundra models meet or exceed all federal safety standards, she said.

GM spokesman Tom Wilkerson declined to comment about the test scores.

Extra support

After getting a marginal rating on its 2015 F-150 SuperCab, Ford added extra safety supports already found in its larger SuperCrew version. The company said it reinforced the rocker panels and added wheel blockers and nylon hinge pillars to the F-150 SuperCab to better control crash forces.

“We spent thousands of hours engineering, designing and developing multiple safety features that work together in the event of an accident” Raj Nair, Ford global product development chief, said in a statement.

In 2012, IIHS began conducting the small overlap test to measure how vehicles perform in a crash designed to simulate an oncoming car drifting over the center line or running into a tree or telephone pole.

Special Reports /

Ford improves F-150 to score top rating in insurer safety test

Related Stories

Recommended For You