Autoblog

The F-150 has been the pickup truck sales king for 29 years, and when Ford redesigned its breadwinner for the 2004 model year, it did so with the intention of remaining number one for the foreseeable future. Well, the current F-150 is still number one in sales for now, but fierce competition from the all-new Silverado and Toyota Tundra means that Ford has to pick up its marketing efforts to keep their full-size truck on top.

This is where Mike Rowe of Dirty Jobs fame steps in. You've seen some of the other Ford spots featuring Rowe here on Autoblog, and now we've got another one for you. This time Ford and Rowe are taking a thinly-veiled shot at Toyota's Tundra for its four-star front impact rating from the NHTSA, which falls short of the F-150's five-star front and side impact ratings. The spot features a Ford safety engineer, who acts as Rowe's strait man. Hit the jump to take a closer look at Ford's latest salvo against the competition.

[Source: PickupTruck.com]

Jalopnik got their mitts on these newly-minted Ford Truck spots with Mike Rowe. For those of you who've been living under a rock for the last year, Mike Rowe is the host of Discovery Channel's "Dirty Jobs," a show that would be hilarious just on the strength of Rowe's comedic timing and commentary. It's a very "guy thing" show, I doubt I'd ever walk in the room and find that my wife had tuned to it on her own. Of course, the appeal is wide enough that she'd sit down and watch, were it to be on.

Such is the appeal that Ford wishes to garner with the F150. They've successfully scrubbed the king of pickup sales behind the ears to great result. The problem is that while the F150 waits until 2009 for a refresh, GM just rolled out the GMT900s, and the Tundra is all-new. Granted, the Tundra isn't a proven threat yet, and with a goal of 200,000 this year, they'll probably sell out without dinging F150 sales. Perception's a funny thing though, and Ford wants to be certain that when people think Pickup, they think F150, hence the revamped ads. We think it's a smart move, as Mike Rowe has charisma and delivery that should at least amuse us. Whether it will help sell trucks remains to be seen.

Videos after the jump.

[Source: Jalopnik]

Click on the photo for a high-res gallery of Mike Rowe and the F-150

One of my son's favorite shows on the Discovery Channel after MythBusters is Dirty Jobs. Mike Rowe is the host of Dirty Jobs and on each episode he tries out various nasty jobs that real people have to do, such as skull cleaner, garbage pit technician, and owl vomit collector. Today Ford announced that Mike is joining its F-series promotional team. He'll be in a series of commercials that demonstrate the improved capabilities of the 2008 F-150 in towing and hauling heavy loads. The Ford press release is after the jump.

[Source: Ford]