Thoughts on a F350

I was at Freedom Ford last Monday when Clarence and I started discussing the 2011 F350, which sells like warm Swiss rolls. I refer to this pick-up as a true work of art. This statement started Clarence. In his book and being 35 years in the automotive business he sees every car just a a piece of metal. But the 2011 Ford pick-up models really wow him, he almost gets lyrical. Chevy tried to match and outperform the F350, wrong move; Ford sent out an invitation to all F350 owners saying at the next service they would run a code to improve power with 20 break HP, for free. Indeed more than the Chevy (Clarence claims), and lets be honest you really need the extra HP on top of the 400HP. Unfortunately there is a downside to the 2011 F350 Powerstroke V8 Diesel; service and maintenance doubles the F150 cost, at least. And with service every 8000 km that tends to be quite expensive, right. So the plans for a new F350 go into the cold Canadian winter, for the now. And 80 grand for a toy is a bit too much. So I will probably bump up my F150. I wonder why in Europe engines are downsized (1.8 ltr to 1.6 ltr) while maintaining and even improving power; here is North America engine sizes are bumped up and fuel economy improves. Ford now has 6.2 ltr a a standard. Also I wonder why Audi produces V8 and V10 R8 race monsters, nobody has a private circuit in their backyard. In my book comparable developments just to be the biggest, fastest. But I like it, a lot. Imagine owning a Audi R8 V10 and a Ford F350 V8 Diesel. Wow. It only set you back some $240.000 US.