7 Of The Best Interior Features In The Ford F-150 King Ranch

The Ford F-150 family has grown to eight members in 2024, from the XL, STX, XLT, and Lariat, to the Tremor, King Ranch, Platinum — and now Raptor.  Sitting near the top of this full-size pickup's trim price list is the King Ranch, a swanky version named after a gargantuan South Texas cattle ranch that has moseyed onto the National Register of Historic Places. 

With the 2025 model starting at $74,705, the King Ranch has the appointments inside that you'd expect from a vehicle with this price tag, starting with lots of leather.

Standard are heated leather seating surfaces in the first and second row, decorated with the ranch's brand. The driver and front passenger are treated to bucket seats that are also ventilated, with the driver's seat featuring a settings memory for its 10-way power positioning. Other upscale touches include a heated, leather-wrapped steering wheel and leather-wrapped shifter. And there are more interior features that make the King Ranch model special.

New for 2024, the F-150 gets more power and goodies, like an available head-up display that projects important information where the driver can see it, without taking eyes off the road. The display projects data such as speed limit and current speed onto the windshield. Even though vehicles such as the Pontiac Aztek had this feature 20 years ago, it's still a safety measure that shockingly few vehicles offer. Ford takes it a step further by allowing drivers tp customize not only the information they see, but where it appears on the windshield. 

Drivers can also customize what they see on the Digital Instrument Cluster that's behind the steering wheel, minimizing distractions and letting them focus on what is important to them. Otherwise, it could be easily overwhelming for a driver to have to scan two large screens and a head-up display full of info for what they need, instead of watching the road.

Full self-driving: Are we there yet? The answer is still no for consumer vehicles. But Ford is setting the pace now –- ahead of even Tesla, according to Consumer Reports, with its Level 2 active driving assistance system, BlueCruise. It's available on the 2024 and 2025 King Ranch and 2024 Tremor F-150.

BlueCruise is one of the standout features on new Ford F-150s, pairing adaptive cruise control with lane centering assistance to keep the truck traveling at a safe distance from the vehicle in front of it, as well as vehicles to the sides. It does this by controlling speed, braking, and steering to keep the truck in the center of its lane, or even move it slightly off-center when detecting a vehicle close by in an adjoining lane. It can also change lanes without the driver steering. This feature is especially useful for driving in stop-and-go traffic or on long stretches of uninterrupted highway, which can be especially fatiguing. It does all of this on select sections of controlled-access divided highways.  

Unlike some systems that require the driver to touch the steering wheel to convince the vehicle the driver isn't sleeping or dead, BlueCruise uses a driver-facing camera that watches where the driver is looking and the position of his or her head. This is important with a hands-free system because drivers still need to be able to take over at any time in case of emergency. 

With enough experience, many drivers can easily back up their vehicles to their trailer hitches using only a back-up camera or a buddy standing out in the elements to wave them in. The Pro Trailer Hitch Assist feature is for the rest of us, or for when the buddy also wants to stay in the cozy truck cab as long as possible.

All the driver has to do is press and hold one button, and the King Ranch will back up correctly to the hitch of a conventional trailer, automatically accelerating, steering, and braking. 

The Pro Trailer Backup Assist feature is for when you've got the trailer attached, but now need to fit it and your truck into a back-in parking space. This is a steering assist, so drivers still are responsible for accelerating and braking. But the angle of attack is calculated by the truck when you look at the rear-view camera's display and turn a knob on the dashboard telling the F-150 where you want the trailer to end up.

One disadvantage of a pickup truck is its wide-open design that lets passersby see every item in the cab or bed, unless extra storage is added. Do you like to keep your tools in your truck? That can be a risk for burglary.

The King Ranch comes standard with a clever locking storage compartment that's tucked out of sight under the rear seats. Flip up the rear seats, hide your tools, fold the seats back down, and away you go. It protects goods from the elements, prying eyes, or getting kicked and lost under the seats.

If that's not secure enough, this truck has an optional safe! It's a handy feature for professionals who need paperwork at a job site but don't want to carry it on their person  all of the time. The in-vehicle safe by Console Vault can be built into the truck under the console, where it's not visible. It's constructed of 12-gauge cold-rolled steel plate with a key lock system to deter theft.