Breaking Down the Most Popular Ford Trucks on F-150 Online

Eleventh gen Ford F-150 is the most popular era, but members love talking about the Lightning.

While the focus of F-150 Online‘s forums is the Ford F-150, the site has a wide variety of information on many different Ford F-Series  trucks and SUVs. We got to wondering which truck or type of truck was the most popular on the site, so we sorted the generational sections and the model-specific sections by thread count, replies, and views to see which era or model of the Ford truck was the most popular on the site.

The Most Popular Vehicle Section

If we focus strictly on threads and posts, it is easy to see which era of Ford trucks are the most popular on the site. The SVT Lightning section has amassed 70,235 threads, making it the most popular vehicle section on the forum. Those 70k+ threads have led to 743,296 posts, which is also the highest number of any of the vehicle section.

Other package-specific or body-specific sections on the site include those for the Harley-Davidson models, the King Ranch, the SVT Raptor, the Excursion, the Expedition, the Lincoln Blackwood/Mark LT, and the SuperCrew. If you add up all of the threads and posts from those sections, they still fall well-short of the Lightning.

The Most Popular Era Section

In addition to those sections that focus on individual packages or body layouts, the most popular sections on the forum are those which apply to whole generations of the F-150. The generations are broken down into Pre-1997, 1997-2003, 2004-2008, 2009-2014 and 2015-2018, and while you might guess that the generations with the most model years would be the busiest sections – you would be wrong. In fact, aside from the newest generation, the smallest era of the F-150 is actually the most popular section on the site.

The 11^th generation F-150 section – including trucks from 2004 through 2008 – has accounted for nearly 54,000 threads on the site. Those threads have generated a total of 687,632 posts, leading to an average of roughly 13 posts per thread. Even though the 11^th generation only covers five model years, it is far more popular than any of the other four generational sections. In fact, the 11^th generation section has more threads and more posts than all of the other F-150 generation sections combined. Even if we add in all of the other vehicle-specific sections aside from the Lightning, the 2004-2008 section is still more popular – leaving no question as to which generation of the F-150 is the most popular within our community.

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11^th Gen F-150 Versus Lightning

You might be wondering whether the 11^th generation F-150 or the Lightning section is more popular. Based purely on thread count and post count, the Lightning has a commanding lead in both metrics. However, if you go into those two sections, the threads in the 2004-2008 era section creates far more useful discussion.

In the 11^th generation F-150 section, the most active thread has 4,494 replies and 392,562 views whereas the most active thread in the Lightning section has 694 replies and 73,741 views, but that Lightning thread was a marriage proposal from one member to another. The most active Lightning thread that actually pertains to the truck is a project thread with 452 replies and 261,476 views.

The 11^th generation F-150 has ten threads with more replies than the most active Lightning thread and while the Lightning section has just the one thread on the first page with more than 100,000 views, the 2004-2008 F-150 section has 12 threads with more than 100,000 views – one of which has a whopping 784,125 views.

Finally, with the two sections at hand being sorted by the number of replies, we have to go to the bottom of the ninth page of the 2004-2008 section to find a thread with less than 100 replies. In the Lightning section, threads with less than 100 replies begin at the top of the eighth page.

So, while the Lightning has more threads with and more views, the 11^th generation F-150 section has a greater number of threads with more activity along with having far more threads that are much more active than the most active threads in the Lightning section.

The bottom line is that the F-150Online community love the Lightning, but the 2004-2008 F-150 is the most commonly-discussed truck on the site.

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Patrick Rall

"Before I was old enough to walk, my dad was taking me to various types of racing events, from local drag racing to the Daytona 500," says Patrick Rall, a lifetime automotive expert, diehard Dodge fan, and respected auto journalist for over 10 years. "He owned a repair shop and had a variety of performance cars when I was young, but by the time I was 16, he was ready to build me my first drag car – a 1983 Dodge Mirada that ran low 12s. I spent 10 years traveling around the country, racing with my dad by my side. While we live in different areas of the country, my dad still drag races at 80 years old in the car that he built when I was 16 while I race other vehicles, including my 2017 Dodge Challenger SRT Hellcat and my 1972 Dodge Demon 340.

"Although I went to college for accounting, my time in my dad’s shop growing up allowed me the knowledge to spend time working as a mechanic before getting my accounting degree, at which point I worked in the office of a dealership group. While I was working in the accounting world, I continued racing and taking pictures of cars at the track. Over time, I began showing off those pictures online and that led to my writing.

"Ten years ago, I left the accounting world to become a full-time automotive writer and I am living proof that if you love what you do, you will never “work” a day in your life," adds Rall, who has clocked in time as an auto mechanic, longtime drag racer and now automotive journalist who contributes to nearly a dozen popular auto websites dedicated to fellow enthusiasts.

"I love covering the automotive industry and everything involved with the job. I was fortunate to turn my love of the automotive world into a hobby that led to an exciting career, with my past of working as a mechanic and as an accountant in the automotive world provides me with a unique perspective of the industry.

"My experience drag racing for more than 20 years coupled with a newfound interest in road racing over the past decade allows me to push performance cars to their limit, while my role as a horse stable manager gives me vast experience towing and hauling with all of the newest trucks on the market today.

"Being based on Detroit," says Rall, "I never miss the North American International Auto Show, the Woodward Dream Cruise and Roadkill Nights, along with spending plenty of time raising hell on Detroit's Woodward Avenue with the best muscle car crowd in the world.

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