What’s the Best Off-Road Truck You Can Buy? TFLtruck’s 2019 Gold Winch Winner Is… (Video)

TFLtruck is using a battery of objective truck measurements and a difficult “Cliffhanger 2.0” Rocky Mountain off-road trail to determine the best off-road truck and the Gold Winch award recipient.

The Cliffhanger 2,0 trail is very steep – over 20 degrees – with loose rocks, a Truth or Dare split (the Dare side is a lot more rocky), and a challenging obstacle near the top we call the Razor’s Bend. We take all of the competitors on the Dare side of this trail just to make it more difficult. “This mountain trail is not impossible,” said Roman Mica, Editor, Host and Publisher. “The challenge is for participating automakers to build a vehicle that can be effective and easy to navigate up a difficult off-road obstacle.”

Gold Winch objective tests:

  • RTI: ramp travel index that measures suspension articulation
  • Crawl ratio: slow speed control comparison with the world’s slowest drag race
  • Front visibility: measuring the distance to an obstacle ahead
  • Turning radius/diameter: measure the truck’s maneuverability
  • Technology/Camera: evaluation of visibility as provided by truck’s cameras

This year’s competition could not be closer. Each of the five objective tests was won by a different truck. 

2019 Gold Winch half-ton truck contenders include:

  • 2019 Chevy Silverado 1500 Trail Boss
  • 2019 Ford Raptor
  • 2019 GMC Sierra 1500 AT4
  • Nissan Titan PRO-4X
  • 2019 Ram Rebel
  • 2019 Toyota Tundra TRD Pro

All half-ton trucks under consideration are all-new or significantly updated for 2019 with one exception. The Nissan Titan PRO-4X is our long-term test truck. It is used as a bench mark for this comparison.

2019 Gold Winch Award winner:

Best Off-Road half-ton pickup truck – 2019 Ford Raptor

“The 2019 Ford Raptor takes it to the next level with the addition of the latest (Trail Control) crawl control system and active FOX shocks suspension. The Trail Control is simple to engage and to use. The system is smooth and quiet in its operation. The Active (Live Valve) FOX shocks respond to changing terrain in real time, and the shock stiffness can be adjusted via the drive mode selector.” said Andre Smirnov.

We published our deliberations on the TFLtruck youtube channel.