Engine options of the Brazilian Ford Super Duty: comparable to the times of the Model T?

Released in Brazil in late-'98, the first generation of the Ford Super Duty had its engine range adjusted to some regional conditions of that moment, such as a demand for turbodiesels being a top-tier priority due to fuel costs and a work-oriented profile, with the F-350 resorting until late-2011 to Cummins B3.9 mechanically-governed engines while the F-250 was available at first also with the same Cummins until mid-'99 when a 6-cylinder 4.2L MWM Sprint engine was offered initially alongside it in order to reach a more leisure-oriented buying pattern until it effectively replaced the Cummins for the F-250 in 2001. At a later stage however, the Cummins returned to the F-250 in late-2005 in an electronically-controlled version compliant to Euro-3 regulations which soldiered on until late-2011 when the Brazilian F-250 was phased out, while the competition from the imported Dodge Ram with a 6-cylinder 5.9L version of the Cummins clearly overshadowed the F-250 among private owners who were more leisure-oriented. Odd enough, while the only gasoline-powered engine fitted to the Brazilian F-250 for the local market was the 4.2L Canadian Essex V6 never available for this model outside the Mercosur region, there were export-only RHD versions mostly for Australia fitted with the gasoline-powered 5.4L Triton V8 and the 7.3L PowerStroke V8 turbodiesel, with the MWM also available for Australia in entry-level trims and in South Africa as the sole engine available.

Also noteworthy is the Brazilian F-250 having been available with a shorter wheelbase on regular-cab rear-wheel drive versions, considering the different evolution of the Brazilian full-size pick-up trucks in general, which previously tended to share bodystyles with their American 1/2-ton counterparts in order to save on retooling of the factories while the Brazilian car market was basically closed to imports from '76 to '90, and in that meantime Diesel engines became more relevant on this class and some regulatory aspects required an upgrade to 3/4-ton to become eligible to the fitment of Diesel engines on rear-wheel drive vehicles with accomodation to fewer than 9 passengers (driver not included). As there was a hurry to provide a locally-made Diesel engine to previous generations of full-size pick-ups trucks in Brazil, at a lower cost than it would be to manufacture locally the same engines available elsewhere as economics of scale dictated so, due to the smaller overall sales volume compared to the United States, it was much easier to use some random agricultural 4-cylinder engine, while a more conservative buying pattern of many buyers enabled such makeshift to remain relevant once the Ford Super Duty was released locally. Sure the fierce competition from grey-imports with beefier engines and options such as 4-wheel drive and automatic transmissions, mostly neglected by Ford through most of its manufacturing of the model for the local market had its appeal among private customers who started to draw inspiration from the American Way of Life somehow...

Even though Ford already made long-wheelbase regular-cab models for export to Australia and South Africa, and offered even the 4-wheel drive option with the MWM engine, such features were introduced to the local Brazilian market only in late-2005 alongside the electronically-controlled Cummins engine, while the F-350 retained the mechanically-governed in a slightly detuned rating to comply with Euro-3 too. Such circumstance may lead to comparisons between the engine selection for the Brazilian versions of the Ford Super Duty and what Ford did with the Model T on a worldwide basis. Sure resorting to just one engine, and manual transmission exclusively, tended to be favored in order to keep the logistics of replacement parts and servicing simpler with fewer resources and tools even deep in the countryside, yet the 4-wheel drive option also justified itself while driving through rough terrain either for working purposes or recreational off-roading. As a full-size pick-up truck was too far from being as nimble as a Ford Model T, even though it also retained a similar body-on-frame layout with longitudinal engine and rear-wheel drive, in spite of all those obvious evolutions which happened through almost one century regarding frame designs and all its subassemblies such as brakes or suspension systems and the steering gear, it would be somewhat predictable to expect some Brazilians until late-2005 to either get US-spec grey-imports (also featuring different engines to which it could be more difficult to get servicing at the official Ford dealerships) or resort to specialty 4-wheel drive conversions, relatable to some extent to a few 4-wheel drive conversions implemented at a small scale to the Ford Model T by entrepreneurs such as Jesse Livingood which were adopted even by the United States Military as the Army shifted from the usage of horses to motor vehicles during World War I.

While the F-250 finally got a factory-fitted 4-wheel drive on the local market in late-2005, even though it could have been implemented since the introduction of the Super Duty in '98, the Brazilian F-350 was never available with such option, unless the regional F-4000 could be related to dual rear wheel variants of the American F-350 to which its gross vehicle weight ratings were closer, and it's worth noticing how GVWR became too critical as most 3/4-tons such as the F-250 started to grow heavier than the limit for regular car driving license holders in Brazil which is stricter than in the United States or in Australia, so it was just a matter of time for compact and mid-size pick-ups trucks to become more relevant locally for both working purposes and recreational users. The cost and bureaucracy to get a commercial driving license in Brazil renders it undesirable for some people if their only reason to do so would be driving a Ford F-250 or F-350, leading to a phaseout of the Brazilian Super Duty in late-2011 as Ford claimed it was uneconomical to upgrade the engines in order to comply with the Euro-5 which became enforced in Brazil in 2012. Odd enough, a very specific demand for the F-350 and F-4000, which justified retaining a mechanically-governed engine until the Euro-5 regulations required an electronic engine management and full compliance to OBD-2 standards, has also led to another unusual situation when Ford was urged by dealers and a more traditional customer base to resume production of the F-350 and F-4000 which ultimately ran once again from mid-2014 to late-2019 with an electronically-governed engine.

To much surprise of the most conservative public, the B3.9 engine gave way to the downsized ISF2.8 as a budget-oriented way to decrease the cost of the exhaust aftertreatment devices required as the Euro-5 emission regulations were enforced, yet the F-350/F-4000 once again repeated the strategy of a single smaller regionally-sourced engine and manual transmission only, in contrast to what Ford does in the NAFTA region where beefier engines (both gasoline-powered and turbodiesel options) are the rule and so has been an automatic transmission in recent years, even though the earliest generation of the Super Duty still had the option for a manual transmission even in the United States where the automatics have been prevalent for a long time. As the intention was to simply offer a traditionally-designed truck to an austere and more professionally-oriented buying pattern, to whom such makeshift was perceived to be enough considering Brazilian conditions (and a limited availability on regional export markets within the Mercosur region), Ford once again did something which can be traced back to how the Ford Model T retained only one engine type from September 27, 1908 to May 26, 1927 with a very unusual built-in 2-speed semi-automatic transmission. Most likely, as the GVWR limits for car driver licensing in Brazil became unfavorable for the Ford Super Duty to retain its previous foothold among private/recreational buyers, and the lower speed limits applied to trucks on Brazilian highways might have rendered it quite unnecessary in the eyes of the management of the local branch of Ford to use a beefier engine back in the day, there is another aspect which may lead to an accurate comparison to how the Ford Model T had a maximum speed which became quickly obsolete...

While resorting to some simpler Brazilian-made engines for local variants of the Ford Super Duty could be perceived as just another makeshift suitable only to a Republic of Bananas where anything else is too costly, or where a shade-tree mechanic more familiar with an old-school mechanically-governed tractor engine is the nearest one able to provide technical assistance in a hurry, just like the Ford Model T was designed in order to address the needs of farmers back in the day, there are some obvious coincidences which are hard to neglect. Some requirements for the engines to be manufactured locally sounded like an unusual motivation for only a simpler engine always bolted to a manual transmission to be available in Brazil due to economics of scale, even though differing emission standards dictated a few changes through the local production run of the Ford Super Duty, in a similar way to how the Ford Model T was always fitted with just one powerplant through its entire production run on a worldwide basis, including CKD assembly in some export markets. In the end, while some obvious technical evolutions through the 90-year timeframe between the release of the Ford Model T and the Super Duty would seem to have set them too apart, there were ultimately some conceptual similarities, and the different engine options for the Brazilian versions of the Super Duty can be traced back to the same strategy applied by Ford back in the Model T days...