The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS) is challenging the reputation of full-size pickup trucks as indestructible beasts with its latest round of crash-test results. After putting extended-cab and crew-cab versions of the Ford F-150, Chevrolet Silverado, Ram 1500, and Toyota Tundra through its full battery of tests, the Ford was the only model to ace the small-overlap crash test and procure the “good” rating that’s required to earn the Top Safety Pick award.
Of the other models tested, crew-cab and extended-cab versions of the Ram 1500 earned a “marginal” rating in the small-overlap test, as did the crew-cab Toyota Tundra and the crew-cab Chevrolet Silverado (which also includes the GMC Sierra). Extended-cab versions of the Tundra and the General Motors pickups fared slightly better, earning an “acceptable” rating, but the IIHS noted that all of these models allowed a significant amount of intrusion into the passenger compartment, most notably in the driver’s footwell. “Drivers in these pickups would need help freeing their legs from the wreckage following a small-overlap crash,” said IIHS Vehicle Research Center vice president Raul Arbelaez in a statement.
The IIHS says it decided to test two different body styles of these trucks because it found a disparity between extended-cab and crew-cab models during small-overlap testing of the Ford F-150 last year. While crew-cab models passed the test ...