Motor Trend - USA (2020-01)

Thanks to several Big Tex trailers and some John Deere equipment, we spent a whole

day pushing our TOTY contenders near their limits on the infamous Davis Dam Grade.

Nobody does as much thorough testing

as MotorTrend to determine who

deserves the industry’s highest honor.

With the truck’s stability

control systems on, we timed

how quickly they could

negotiate a 250-foot double

lane-change maneuver.

Watch for more about this

at MotorTrend.com.

Without threat of traffic or law enforcement,
we probe contenders’ dynamic limits.

Renowned designer Ian Callum joined our

team as a COTY guest judge this year.

With a payload of dense rubber horse mats, we tested acceleration and braking.

JANUARY 2020 MOTORTREND.COM 13

We then convoyed to Kingman, Arizona,

and evaluated our 12 contenders on our

21.5-mile road loop. The next couple days

were spent at FCA’s Arizona Proving

Ground. The test team would gather

data on our trucks while empty and

while towing a trailer weighing about

three-quarters of each pickup’s towing

capacity. Meanwhile, the rest of the

judges towed the same trailers through

the proving ground and evaluated each

unladen truck on an off-road course.

After that, we wrapped up our program in

Bullhead City. We used the 5.8-mile Davis

Dam pass, with a 5.2 percent average

grade, to evaluate how each truck handles

three-quarters of its towing capacity in

the real world. Data in hand, we’d pick our

winners. Christian Seabaugh

How we test I OF THE YEAR