Ford Motor Co. said its aluminum-bodied F-150 pickup will get as much as 29 percent better fuel economy than its mostly steel predecessor as the automaker gambles with a new design for its top-selling and most profitable model.

When equipped with a 2.7-liter EcoBoost engine, the truck has an estimated fuel economy of 26 miles per gallon on the highway and 19 in the city, Raj Nair, Ford’s product-development chief, said yesterday. Production began earlier this month at Ford’s Rouge factory and it’s scheduled to arrive in showrooms by the end of this year. The company has started shipping the trucks to dealers.

“I’m more impressed with the fact that they are shipping them already than the fuel economy,” said Dave Sullivan, an analyst at AutoPacific Inc. who attended the event. “With all the concerns about producing an aluminum truck, that’s pretty impressive,” he said Thursday.

Chief Executive Officer Mark Fields has said that efficiency is the most important feature for buyers of the Dearborn, Michigan-based company’s pickups. The truck sheds as much as 700 pounds (318 kilograms) to improve fuel economy, mostly by using aluminum instead of steel in its body. General Motors Co.’s Chevrolet Silverado and GMC Sierra and Fiat Chrysler Automobiles NV’s Ram pickups are mostly steel

The best fuel economy for a Chevy Silverado is 24 mpg on the highway with a 4.3-liter V-6 engine, according to the U.S. Department of Energy. The Ram pickup has a maximum fuel economy with a gasoline engine of 25 mpg with the 3.6-liter V-6 engine. GM’s 5.3-liter V-8 engine is still more efficient than Ford’s 5.0-liter V-8, 23 mpg combined compared with 22, according to Ford.

“It’s a concern that GM still beats Ford V-8 to V-8, since the V-8 is still going to be 28 percent of Ford sales,” Sullivan said. “You have to wonder what the overall gain is going to be in the end.”

By cutting 700 pounds Ford is able to lower the truck’s center of gravity and give a better driving dynamic and make other improvements that will also appeal to buyers, said Doug Scott, Ford’s truck marketing manager.

Ford raised prices on the new truck by 1.5 percent, or $395, on the base model XL, which starts at $26,615, to 7.9 percent, or $3,615, on the high-end King Ranch version that starts at $49,460.

The automaker doesn’t plan to offer a diesel F-150 version, at this time, said Nair, flanked by two versions of the new pickup near Ford’s Dearborn test track. The company offers diesel in heavier-duty versions of the pickup and plans to have a hybrid version this decade, he said.

Nair specifically compared the new Ford pickup with the diesel Ram pickup, which gets as much as 28 miles per gallon on the highway and 23 combined. Based on the price of diesel fuel, operating a gasoline Ford pickup with 22 mpg combined will be about $450 cheaper a year based on the higher price of diesel fuel at 23 mpg combined city/highway, he said.

To install new factory tools for the truck, Ford shut down its two F-150 plants for 13 weeks this year ― costing the automaker production of 90,000 of the profitable model. It will lose more production next year as it takes six weeks to convert its F-150 factory near Kansas City, Missouri.

In 2013, Ford’s F-Series was the top-selling vehicle line in the U.S. for the 32nd consecutive year, with sales rising 18 percent to 763,402. That helped drive Ford’s North American pretax profit to a record $8.78 billion last year.

Ford told investors on Sept. 29 that pretax profits this year will fall to $6 billion, short of its goal of $7 billion to $8 billion. (Bloomberg)