modern cars are literally designed to deform on impact to keep the passengers safe. they're called "crumple zones" and they exist to dissipate kinetic energy to keep everybody involved safer. adding "more rigidity" isn't serving any meaningful purpose.

Yeah, that totally explains how it got top honors from both major U.S. safety organizations.

if it's so safe why is it banned from many european countries for safety concerns?

NHTSA very notably didn't care about pedestrian safety at all. Luckily that finally changed, they started testing for that for 2027 models onward.

IIHS only really tests how good a car is at preventing an accident, not what happens when it fails like for example Euro NCAP does (and so does NHTSA starting nowish).

> I guess we all just want something that “looks like a pickup”, is heavy, and guzzles $7 a gallon diesel fuel

No actually the lightning and the R1T are pretty well loved by the people who took a chance on them

Ford has discontinued the Lightning; the R1T starts at $80k.