Watch along as MotorTrend editor Aaron Gold jumps in to some new features we found at Truck of the Year which make life with these vehicles that much better.
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00:00 I'm Aaron Gold from Motor Trend. I'm out here in beautiful Detroit, Michigan for our
00:05 Truck of the Year competition. Now we found some very cool features in a lot of these
00:09 trucks, some of which are new to us, some of which we've seen before, but all of them
00:13 make life with these trucks better. And in this video I want to show you some of the
00:17 coolest. This is the GMC Canyon, and both it and the Chevrolet Colorado have this storage
00:26 compartment that is hidden away in the tailgate. Now we're not sure we would put back there
00:31 maybe a really long candy bar like a Charleson 2, perhaps a Marathon if they still make those,
00:36 but it is a cool feature and it's one that we have not seen before. Now the trucks keep
00:42 getting taller and I keep getting shorter, but happily the Chevrolet Silverado 2500 has
00:46 a staircase built right into the tailgate, complete with a banister. Still a bit of a
00:52 step for the short guy, but up we go and here I am. I think I'm getting a nosebleed. And
00:57 actually there's another way for short guys like me to access the bed. We see this in
01:01 the Ford as well, and it's these side steps that they built right into the side of the
01:06 bed. This is the GMC Hummer EV which has a four-wheel steering system. Now a lot of people
01:13 know about the crab walk function which lets it move diagonally, but what we think is really
01:17 cool is how sharp you can turn in this thing because the back wheels turn in the opposite
01:21 direction of the front wheels, so you can make these ridiculously sharp turns. Sharper
01:27 than any other full-size pickup, sharper than any compact pickup, sharper than most cars.
01:32 You want a U-turn? I got U-turns. It's a lowercase u, it's a little tiny u. You barely pronounce
01:38 it, it's so tiny. This is the Ford F250 Super Duty and like most pickup trucks it has its
01:45 cameras in the tailgate, so when you open the tailgate you lose the use of your cameras,
01:50 wrong, because Ford now puts not only a backup camera, but parking sensors, sonar parking
01:56 sensors in the top edge of the tailgate, so if you're carrying something really long that
02:00 requires the tailgate to be open, all that stuff still works, but that's not the coolest
02:05 feature in this Ford. I want to show you something even cooler. Come on, let's get in. Now most
02:09 trucks have lines that help you line the hitch up to the trailer, but the Ford will actually
02:13 do it for you with this new feature called Pro Trailer Hitch Assist. Is the trailer connected?
02:18 Not yet. So now we back up the truck until our trailer coupler is in the little target
02:27 there. This is the right one, so we stop the truck, press and hold the button, feet off
02:33 the brake, hands off the steering wheel, and I'm just sitting here just like you are and
02:39 it backs up to the coupler all by itself. I am doing nothing but holding the button.
02:49 Now it's going to get pretty close and then it's going to stop and it's going to say,
02:57 is the hitch at the right height? It's appropriate, I already checked, so we say yes, press and
03:01 hold the button, taking its time. Once again, I'm not touching the pedals, I'm not touching
03:07 the wheel and it should start moving here in a second. Nice and slow, until it's right
03:17 underneath and it stops. Well let's see how she did and it's perfect. Look at that, we
03:26 just dropped the trailer right down onto the hitch. Boom. Now we did find that sometimes
03:33 the system is a little bit too far forward or a little bit too far back, but that's easy
03:37 to adjust, but side to side it's always perfect, that's the hardest part. This is a really
03:42 cool feature, definitely one of the coolest things we've seen here at Motor Trend Truck
03:45 of the Year. Thanks for watching, for more about Truck of the Year and all things automotive,
03:52 visit us on the web at MotorTrend.com. Now if you'll excuse me, I have more trucks to
03:56 drive.
03:57 [Music]