Ford Motor Co. rolled out a revamped F-150 large pickup, the linchpin of its efforts to stem a sales slide and fend off competition in trucks that account for about a fourth of vehicles the company sells in the U.S.

The F-150 introduced today at the North American International Auto Show in Detroit is the truck’s first major redesign of F-150 since 2003. Since then, General Motors Corp. and Toyota Motor Corp. brought out revised large pickups. Chrysler LLC also introduced a redesigned Ram pickup at the show.

“We have to stay competitive; we have to have a meaningful share,” Jim Farley, Ford’s marketing chief, said at a Dec. 11 briefing in Dearborn, Michigan, about the truck. The 2009 model, which gets a new exterior, more power and better average fuel economy, goes on sale in this year’s second half.

The F-150 represents about 60 percent of F-Series pickup sales, which have been under siege from rivals’ fresher models and a housing slump that cut into demand from contractors. Last year, F-Series U.S. sales tumbled 13 percent, compared with a decline of 3.2 percent for all large pickups.

Toyota’s bulked-up Tundra gained sales, while models from U.S. automakers each declined. That helped the Toyota City, Japan-based automaker pass Ford to become second in U.S. sales.

The 690,589 F-Series trucks sold last year were the lowest since 1995 and contributed to Ford’s 12 percent slide in total sales. The F-Series, which also includes F-250 and F-350 models, still was the best-selling vehicle in the U.S. and accounted for 32 percent of large-pickup sales, according to Autodata Corp. Ford doesn’t break out sales for just the F-150.

“They must maintain their competitive position,” said Erich Merkle, auto analyst at consulting firm IRN Inc. in Grand Rapids, Michigan.

New Look, Higher Mileage

The F-150’s revised exterior, including a new grille, makes it “immediately recognizable as a new truck,” Merkle said.

The Dearborn-based automaker estimates the 2009 F-150 will average 1 mile per gallon better than the current truck, which gets 20 mpg in highway driving with a V-6 and 17 mpg with a 5.4-liter V-8, the most popular engine with customers.

“Our goal is to improve the fuel economy of all our products,” Chairman William Clay Ford Jr. told reporters after a news conference at the show.

The 2009 F-150 will offer only V-8 engines. The smallest, at 4.6 liters, will get about the same mileage as the current V-6, spokeswoman Afaf Farah said in an interview.

Ford isn’t releasing horsepower figures for the three V-8s available for the 2009 F-150, she said. All of them will have more horsepower than the engines for the 2008 trucks, Farah said.

The F-150 won’t get a diesel-powered version until 2010.

More Versions

Ford also is expanding the number of F-150 versions to six, from five. The addition, called Platinum, will be the most expensive F-150.

Prices for the current F-150 range as high as $39,830, according to Edmunds.com, the vehicle-pricing Web site. Ford hasn’t released prices for the redesigned pickup.

The new model will add optional features, including a “bed extender” that consists of plastic panels. When folded outward, the panels help store objects longer than the truck bed. When folded inward, they form a storage area that secures items, such as groceries, so they aren’t flung across the bed.

Ford’s Farley, hired last year from Toyota, said advertising for the 2009 F-150 “is something I’m spending a lot of time on.” He declined to discuss specifics, while saying the ads may differ from previous campaigns.

Ford, Toyota and other automakers have produced pickup ads that stress towing power. One F-150 ad also shows a truck rolling out of the back of a cargo plane, then using its brakes to stop the aircraft.

“The full-size pickup market has gotten into a thermonuclear war of ridiculous demonstrations,” Farley said.