2003 Ford F350

It used to be that any pickup rated at more than a half-ton of capacity was hopelessly crude and driven only by guys - big guys - who did so for a living. Today there are five-foot tall women who use crew cab dualies to carpool kids during the week and haul their barrel-racing quarter horses on weekends. Back then, diesel pickups sounded like Louisiana shrimp boats and trailed clouds of black smoke. Now theyre almost as quiet as gas engines and at least as clean. The evolution of the big diesel pickup from commercial necessity to consumer status symbol has been both quick and unexpected. Following leaps forward by GM (with its introduction of the Duramax turbodiesel V-8 in 2001) and Dodge (which introduced a thoroughly revised and better Cummins turbodiesel straight six earlier in the 2003 model year), its once again Fords turn to lug diesel heavy-duty pickups another few thousand feet up the steep evolutionary mountain. Theyre doing it with a new version of the Navistar-built Power Stroke turbodiesel V-8 ava