Ford, the only large U.S. automaker not to reorganize in 2009 under a government-supported bankruptcy, has increased its market share in the United States this year as rivals General Motors Co GM.UL and Chrysler stumbled toward bankruptcy.

As Ford continues to bring on small and mid-sized vehicles “I think we have room to grow, profitably of course, in the United States,” Mulally said in a meeting with industry analysts that was webcast.

Ford also has room to grow in Russia and Europe, he said.

“Two very large mature markets, so growth will be steady, but not real dramatic,” Mulally said of the U.S. and Europe. “If you look at Asia-Pacific we have a lot of room to grow.”

Ford, which has posted losses totaling about $30 billion for the years 2006 through 2008, expects to be at least break-even in 2011 consistent with a gradual recovery in the economy that would also bring an increase in industry sales.

The automaker expects U.S. auto industry sales to slump in September to levels seen earlier in 2009 with the U.S. government “cash for clunkers” incentive program exhausted.

Mark Fields, Ford’s president of the Americas, said he expected September U.S. auto industry sales to range from an annualized rate of 9 million to 9.5 million vehicles.

Ford typically includes medium and heavy duty trucks in its U.S. auto industry sales forecasts.

The Car Allowance Rebate System (CARS) was signed into law by President Obama on June 26 . Under the CARS program, also called the “cash for clunkers” bill, your older car may qualify for a vehicle voucher worth thousands of dollars on a more fuel-efficient new car. The program should begin around July 23 and is available until November 1, 2009.

Here are some answers to common questions about the CARS program. You can use the tools on AutoTrader.com to help you find the right high-MPG vehicle to make the most of the “cash for clunkers” law.

See the Debut of the Ford Interceptor at the 2007 Detroit Auto Show

Riding on a 120.8-in. wheelbase, the Interceptor measures 201.6 in. in overall length. Powered by a 5.0-liter V-8 running on E85 ethanol, the Interceptor delivers 400 bhp to the rear wheels via a six speed manual transmission. Unlike the Mustang, however, the rear suspension is an independent multi-link setup instead of the traditional live axle. Unfortunately, designers grafted the streamliner look of last year’s Super Chief truck concept on what would have been an otherwise handsome four-door. Too bad this concept doesn’t share the same angular good looks as the 427 Concept that bowed in 2003 and has proven so successful on the Fusion. Still, if designers were looking for an intimidating look, they achieved it with a blunt nose that incorporates Ford’s new three-bar grille styling theme, a clamshell “shaker” hood, massive wheels, low greenhouse and high beltline.

See More Detroit Coverage from Road & Track

Inside, the Interceptor features low-back bucket seats, which pay homage to ’60s muscle cars. For safety reasons, however, headrests have not been abandoned entirely, instead they deploy from the headliner. A huge center console divides the cabin and all four seats are equipped with four-point safety belts. The rear seat passengers benefit from belts that are inflatable in a crash. The Interceptor’s instrumentation is minimal with a large tach and speedometer dominating the binnacle in front of the driver, while the audio system and climate control are hidden from view. If Ford decided to develop a four-door off the Mustang platform similar to the Interceptor, the earliest it could make it to market would be in the 2010-2011 timeframe.

This ‘85 GMC K-2500 comes from Jim Emmert of Molalla, Oregon. A swapped-in 6.5L turbodiesel with ATS turbocharger motivates the truck, while a Pro Comp 4-inch lift makes room for 35-inch Dick Cepek Mountain Cat tires. Used daily on a farm, Jim can’t help but count down the hours each week before packing his gear and heading up into the nearby Cascade Mountains for weekend ‘wheeling trips. Jim tells us the turbodiesel gets great fuel mileage and offers better performance than the stock 6.2L.

Ed Williams, lives in Kodiak, Alaska. The photos he sent in were taken in Cordova, Alaska, in front of Sheridan Glacier. His rig is a combination of parts that seem to work well in the chilly Northern regions. A ‘69 Ford Bronco frame was mated to a ‘74 body, and runs a 351 Windsor V-8 engine with a Holley 650 Truck Avenger carburetor. A Jacobs ignition and K&N air filter boost power while a C4 transmission and Dana 20 transfer case provide the gearing. Axles are stock except for a Detroit Locker and 4.88 gears. A 3.5-inch lift came from Bronco Graveyard, and dual Rancho 9000s help smooth out the ride. Beefed-up steering, custom-built bumpers, and a six-point cage round out the list of backyard ingenuity.

This ‘03 Grand Cherokee Laredo belongs to Tyler Raymond from Glenburn, Maine. Sporting an FIPK, a Power-Aid 1-inch throttle-body spacer, and a 2-inch body lift, this Jeep is a perfect daily driver for a region where lifts greater than 3 inches are illegal. Other mods include a Kevin’s Off Road transfer-case skidplate and a set of General Grabber AT2 tires.

David and Ben Weisensel of Granite Quarry, North Carolina, are both longtime readers, and these are the rigs they enjoy abusing each week. David drives the F-350 Crew Cab (affectionately referred to as “Black Thunder”) with a 460 with a rebuilt top end. Power goes through a rebuilt E4OD tranny with a shift kit. A front Dana 60 and rear 10.25 both are equipped with 4.56:1 gearing. A set of 35-inch Interco SSRs provide traction. David’s son Ben prefers old-school brute and drives the ‘77 F-250 Hi-Boy. Known around town as “Big Red,” this rig is equipped with a 400 V-8, stock C6, and a stock transfer case. Dana 60s front and rear sit atop 37-inch Boggers on Alcoa polished-aluminum rims.

Jeanne and Chuck Sylvester of Rochester, Massachusetts, own this sweet red rocket ship. Well, maybe it’s not a rocket ship, but we bet it moves like one. Under the shiny red hood lurks a 5.0L Mustang powerplant mated to a four-speed automatic transmission. From there, a trusty NP205 splits the fire between a front Dana 44 with a Truetrac and a custom Ford 9-inch with a locker out back. Both feature Moser axles and 4.10:1 gearing. There’s also a 6.5-inch lift from Rusty’s Off Road. Chuck says the 5.0L has no problem spinning the 35-inch BFG M-Ts.

Jennifer Buch of Tigerton, Wisconsin, drives this ‘90 Dodge Ramcharger equipped with a 4-inch Rough Country lift, 36-inch tires, and a high-output 318 V-8. This shot was taken on the Pipeline Trail of Wisconsin. Jennifer says she got stuck because she had to hit the hole a second time to get a good picture. Nice, Jennifer. Blame the camera …

Seth Hopper is a Marine stationed in Twentynine Palms, California. His ‘72 Jeepster Commando is affectionately known as a “Bullnose.” For now, it’s completely stock, though in the future Seth plans to upgrade the AMC 304 V-8, TH400 transmission, and Dana 20 transfer case with rebuilds. The stock axles are open and feature 3.73:1 gearing for now. We hope to see another photo of Bullnose once Seth gets around to performing the restoration.

They are buying Ford’s cars and trucks.

Ford gained more than two full percentage points of market share in the United States last month. What’s more, Ford achieved the gain while lowering incentives, such as cash-back rebates, by nearly 30%.

The positive momentum underscores why Ford contends it can make it through the economic downturn without federal assistance.

Ford executives first began pointing out the company’s unique position last December, to distinguish Ford from GM and Chrysler, who received federal loans.

In a campaign partially coordinated by Ford, dealers began running personal letters in their hometown papers about how Ford has distinguished itself both with high-quality, fuel-efficient products and from the other Detroit Three automakers by not taking federal loans.

“Ford Motor Co. has isolated themselves from the other two, as they have not accepted any federal money,” Crown Ford said in a letter to its customers in Nashville, Tenn.

That message has clearly been resonating with consumers.

Now, Ken Czubay, Ford’s vice president, sales and marketing, said Ford’s newest promotion, “Drive the Ford Difference,” combines the “Ford is different” public relations strategy with the Ford brand’s primary marketing campaign, “Drive One.”

“What we have tried to integrate is the two things,” Czubay told the Free Press in an interview. “The company is different, and frankly, the products are different.”

A highlight for Ford has been the 2010 Ford Fusion, which is being billed as the most fuel-efficient midsize sedan in America. In May, sales of the Fusion increased 9.4% to 19,786.

Scheduled to run through the end of June, the “Drive the Ford Difference” promotion offers customers up to three months’ worth of payments on most new Ford, Lincoln or Mercury vehicles, and zero-percent financing for an undisclosed length of time.

Should slogan fade?

Czubay said the new campaign is simply the title for Ford’s monthly promotion and insisted that Ford isn’t backing away from its “Drive One” campaign, which was implemented by Jim Farley, the former Toyota executive who now leads Ford’s marketing and communications efforts.

But some experts, like Art Spinella, president of CNW Marketing Research in Bandon, Ore., said Ford should dump “Drive One” and adopt the “we’re different” message that consumers seem to like. When Ford first introduced “Drive One” in April 2008, consumers had a hard time understanding the message and still struggle to associate it with Ford.

“The Drive One campaign is so amorphous that it doesn’t mean anything,” Spinella said.

In focus groups, Spinella said, 80% of consumers identify Ford immediately when they hear, “Built (blank) Tough,” and 57% still recognize “Have You Driven a (blank) Lately.” In contrast, only 17% associate “Drive One” with Ford.

What is working, Spinella said, are Ford’s comparison commercials — such as comedian Denis Leary’s rant about smart features of the redesigned F-150 — as well as awareness that Ford is the only domestic automaker to forgo federal loans.

“Ford is being very aggressive, and being well received, because it didn’t take any money,” Spinella said.

Thirty-eight percent of people shopping for a Ford cited the company’s rejection of federal loans as a factor that caused them to consider a Ford in May, according to a survey of 4,317 people by CNW Research.

“I hear it all the time” said Jim Seavitt, owner of Village Ford in Dearborn, who sold 175 cars in May.

“People are coming in buying our cars, saying we are the only company left … not owned by the U.S. government.”

Struggles aren’t over

While Ford’s gain in the marketplace has been admirable, the automaker continues to face serious challenges.

Ford lost $1.4 billion over the first three months of the year, burned through $3.7 billion in cash, and could be forced to ask for federal loans if the market doesn’t rebound.

Czubay said Ford isn’t getting overconfident, calling the market “less awful” than it was, but still worse than any year in recent history.

Contact BRENT SNAVELY: 313-222-6512 or bsnavely@freepress.com

Ford delivered more than 1,600 Ford Focus models to the rental fleet as well as a number of Ford Fiesta and Ford Mondeo vehicles. Avis is managing the operation through five BAE locations and three newly opened rental stations in Southampton, Leicester and Barrow-in-Furness.

The entire fleet of Ford cars was supplied and delivered within just two weeks to ensure the contract started on time.

Anthony Ainsworth, Avis UK sales director, said: “The quality and age of rental vehicles is a key part of the contract terms and conditions. Avis is delivering on these commitments with the help of Ford and the Ford Focus, which BAE Systems has told us is a very popular car with its staff.”

Kevin Griffin, director of fleet operations, said: “Rental business continues to play a key role in our strategy as it provides excellent product exposure that generates hundreds of additional sales. Providing cars to Avis and BAE Systems demonstrates how this works in practice in the corporate rental market.

Model: Ford Focus Coupe SES
Engine: 2.0-liter I4
Horsepower/Torque: 143 hp @ 6,000 rpm/136 lb.-ft. @ 4,250 rpm
Transmission: 5-speed manual
Wheelbase: 102.9 in.
Length/Width/Height: 175.0 x 67.9 x 58.6 in.
Tires: P215/45R17
Cargo volume: 13.8 cu. ft.
Fuel economy: 24 mpg city/35 mpg highway/30.3 mpg test
Fuel capacity: 13.0 gal.
Sticker: $20,615 (includes $695 destination and delivery)

The Bottom Line: The Ford Focus coupe comes with all the virtues and sins of a two-door car. The virtues: it’s compact, economical and looks pretty good. The sins: back-seat room is tight for taller adults and you do develop an inferiority complex by driving a smaller car.

Manufacturers have coupes in their lineups for several reasons. One, a two-door almost always looks cooler than a four-door. Two, being lighter, they’re also usually more economical than the four-door version. For Ford, the Focus coupe offers the manufacturer the opportunity to create another vehicle from the Focus stable. And it’s a good one.

While I might not have chosen the Focus coupe for a long trip, it was the vehicle in the driveway when the plans called for a four-hour trip north. But we were pleasantly surprised to note that there were no sacrifices that had to be made.

For one, we had plenty of luggage room. We only carried a pair of suitcases, so there wasn’t a problem, but the Focus coupe has a workable 13.8 cubic feet of cargo volume. We did have hanging clothes, and the hangers are located way to the back on the C-pillar. While this is a tough spot to reach, when the clothes are hanging there isn’t a blind spot created.

The 2.0-liter four-cylinder engine under the hood wasn’t a problem. With 143 horsepower, we had enough to keep us at or above the ambient traffic, while we had good acceleration for blending into traffic from on-ramps. We also averaged more than 30 mpg on our trip, which was nice in this era of rising gas prices.

I felt the Focus coupe was noisy on the road, but it appeared to be a function of highway surface. It also seemed the same on asphalt or concrete road surfaces. On newer asphalt the road noise disappeared.

Connecting the engine to the front wheels is a 5-speed manual transmission. I have been known to be somewhat ham-handed with my shifts, but I had no problems with this shifter. One feature I liked was that reverses is located where sixth would be in a 6-speed (below fifth), so there was almost no chance that you’d accidentally shift into reverse when you’re looking for first (I’ve done it).

On long Interstate runs I needed cruise control, just to keep within the speed limit. Ford’s cruise control is a nice one. When you hit “resume” you’re not also hitting the “accelerate,” so that if you’re already in cruise you don’t speed up.

The front seats are comfortable with a decent amount of side support. Indeed, we were relaxed after four hours of riding and driving.

The rear is another story, as it is in most coupes. Entry and egress from the rear is a piece of work, especially if you’re a senior citizen oroversized. However, once you get back there, the seats are comfortable and the leg and knee room is decent, as long as you’re not too tall. My wife was the one relegated to the back seat, and she reports that she was not uncomfortable.

One disappointing problem we had with the Focus was with the audio system. Even while reading the owner’s manual and the Microsoft Sync booklet, I could not get my iPod to work. I’ve had this problem with other Sync-equipped cars. Sound quality was excellent with CDs, but we would have liked the variety offered by the iPod.

Styling of the Focus SES includes a front that doesn’t look unlike an Audi and a spoiler on the roof above the rear window that adds a bit of sexy to a prosaic coupe.

Sure, it would be more fun to drive a Ferrari or Corvette coupe, but the Ford Focus coupe does all that one would want from it at a great price point.

Hydro-Quebec has joined Ford Motor Company in a North America-wide demonstration and research program on plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEVs).

Ford, in collaboration with the Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI), is undertaking a three-year test program on the Escape PHEV designed to develop and evaluate technical approaches for integrating PHEVs into the electric grid. EPRI has identified nine utilities across North America to test drive the vehicles and collect data on battery technology, vehicle systems, customer use and grid infrastructure. In total, Ford has provided 21 vehicles for the real-world trials. Hydro-Québec is the only Canadian company participating in the program.

Ford says vehicle electrification is a sound environmental choice that will play an important role in the fight against climate change. Furthermore, the automaker says it could be very advantageous for consumers to refuel at the plug receptacle rather than at the pump. Refuelling costs for an average vehicle driven 18,000 kilometres a year would be $244 as opposed to $1,383, which is six times less  costly, says Ford.

“We have to accelerate the replacement of oil by electricity for individual transportation and public transit,” says Thierry Vandal, Hydro-Quebec’s president and  CEO. “The transport sector accounts for 42% of Quebec’s greenhouse gas emissions. The reduction in greenhouse gas emissions that could be achieved through the electrification of transport in Quebec, where 98% of the electricity is produced from renewable sources would be considerable.”

The average consumption of one million all-electric vehicles, which represent 25% of Quebec’s cars, is 3 TWh, the equivalent of the annual generation of the Eastmain-1 hydroelectric facility.

The electrification of vehicles has sparked significant interest in Canada and the United States. PHEVs are one element of Ford’s blueprint for sustainability that includes actions ranging from refinements in gasoline-fuelled engines and transmissions to the development of battery electric vehicles.

“We believe collaboration with utility companies to explore new business models, standards, infrastructure, and communication between vehicle and electric grids will be a key component to advancing the commercialization of electric vehicles in the coming years,” says Nancy Gioia, director of Sustainable Mobility Technologies and Hybrid Vehicle programs at Ford.

The Escape Plug-In Hybrid using high-voltage, lithium ion batteries, uses common household current (120 volts) for charging. Full charge of the battery takes six to eight hours.

When driven for the first 48 km following a full charge, the PHEV can achieve up to 2  L/100 km (approximately) when driven on roads. The vehicle is not range limited by the amount of charge available in the battery because, once the charge in the battery has been depleted, the vehicle continues to operate as a standard Escape Hybrid.

Please check back every weekday around noon to see what’s hot. Here are the top 10 tickers for today:

1. Ford(F Quote)

2. Citigroup(C Quote)

3. Bank of America(BAC Quote)

4. JP Morgan(JPM Quote)

5. Honeywell(HON Quote)

6. China Unicom Hong Kong(CHU Quote)

7. Teradyne(TER Quote)

8. Savient Pharmaceuticals(SVNT Quote)

9. KBR(KBR Quote)

10. Apple(AAPL Quote)

He assumed his post at Volvo at a tumultuous time: just a few months before Ford Motor Co. announced it had begun a strategic review of the brand — and despite speculation that Volvo was going on the block following Ford’s sale of Jaguar and Land Rover. Two months later, he found himself with a new boss, Stephen Odell, who moved from Ford of Europe to become Volvo’s global president-CEO.

Like other global car companies, the niche brand saw its sales drop last year — 18.9% from the record 374,297 new vehicles it sold worldwide in 2007. Volvo sold 73,102 units in the U.S. last year and 106,213 in 2007. Its best-selling model in 2007, the XC90, saw sales slump as Americans shunned big SUVs when gas prices skyrocketed. The automaker laid off 6,000 people globally last year.

Although Volvo is still struggling, along with the rest of the industry, the brand has made some progress in the U.S., posting sales increases in February and March after a disastrous January. The smaller, new XC60, which went on sale in February, jumped to the brand’s third-best-selling model in April and held that slot in May.

And although Mr. Persson said the recession and lower demand for cars has led to a reduction in overall marketing spending, he said Volvo is shifting more attention to online advertising to “reach out to new customers and also to our loyal customers. The consumption by consumers is there for us. And our website is getting more important, and that is accelerated by the recession.”

Mr. Persson talked candidly with Detroit Bureau Chief Jean Halliday about his goals for Volvo.

Ad Age: What changes have you made since you assumed your new position and why?

Mr. Persson: We did change the organization a lot in order to be more focused on all communication channels, so that centrally we are producing more assets for all the local markets. Also, we have people in the marketing department that are also our links to the local markets. I thought that was really important in order not to invent things that don’t have a need or an impact on the local communications. I had that before from working at other companies — people who are connecting the local markets to the headquarters.

Ad Age: Have you made any changes in marketing strategies?

Mr. Persson: We changed the tone of voice of all our communications, which is a good thing because we want them to stand out more. We wanted Volvo to be more impassioned and emotional, and we also wanted Volvo to be bolder in communications.

Ad Age: What tactic have you tried that didn’t work and what lesson did you learn?

Mr. Persson: I wouldn’t say any didn’t work; some were so-so. When I was with Absolut, we tried the “Seven Sins” ads. They were multimedia at the same time as the film “Seven” with Brad Pitt. It was off strategy, so we took it back.

It’s important for marketers to dare to fail. You must have a feeling in your stomach that you don’t know how something is going to work. It’s always important to go a little outside your comfort zone to try to extend the brand. If you don’t dare to fail, you’re never going to grow as a brand.

Ad Age: Before you joined Volvo, what was your take on auto advertising in general?

Mr. Persson: To be honest, car advertising is boring. You see a black background with a very beautiful car and it says, “Here is a beautiful car. Buy it.” I have put a lot of print car ads on my walls here, and they all look alike. You have to be different to stand out. You can’t go out and think everybody will like you.

Ad Age: What do you see as the major challenges facing Volvo considering the global auto-industry slump?

Mr. Persson: The major issue for Volvo is being a small brand and not having the spending other brands have. We have 1% share all over the world, and if we could increase our market share by 1%, that would mean success for Volvo. We have to be something different and be appealing and really be focused in our communications, so we have to select our target group and forget about the others.

He’s president of the Toronto-based company that builds the all-electric ZENN Car (Zero Emissions No Noise) but he’s not focusing on making many more of the little low-speed runabouts.

Says Ian Clifford: “This is nothing to do with building cars, it’s all about energy storage.”

There are about 500 ZENNs on the road in the 40 U.S. states where-low speed cars are legal. It’s a little French-built micro-car that ZENN outfits with an electric motor and enough lead acid batteries to run it about 60 kilometres (in warm weather) on an eight-hour charge.

That’s useful enough for buzzing around in local neighbourhoods but it’s not the disruptive technology Clifford is seeking.

He has now bet the farm on a unique energy storage device from a company in Texas. The company is EEStor and the device is an ultra capacitor that, on a five-minute charge, can supposedly hold 52 kilowatt-hours in a 136-kg unit. That would be enough power to drive an electric car about 400 kilometres. It would also be enough to send most gasoline engines to the scrap heap.

The only problem: No one has ever seen this thing.

Vaughan: Ian, you’ve come a long way from when I first met you and you were stuffing an electric motor and a ton of batteries in an old Renault Dauphine, which I think you called the Feel Good Car.

Clifford: Oh, I’ve learned a lot.

With ZENN, we’ve sold 500 electric cars, which makes us one of the largest electric car companies in the world if you put it in that context.

But it’s a drop in the bucket — there are 250 million cars in the United States.

We have revenue, we make profit on the cars we sell, but we are totally in investment mode. It’s all focused heavily on EEStor’s technology.

You need a better battery.

Electric cars in huge numbers are do-able with the right battery technology.

This is nothing to do with building cars; it’s all about energy storage.

Isn’t the answer with the battery companies doing lithium-ion or lithium-polymer?

They don’t have a clue four years out what’s going to happen to their batteries. They really don’t.

You know what’s going to happen in a cellphone, but 50 kilowatt-hours of energy storage in a car — forget it, they don’t have a clue.

Even with some of the established lithium battery companies — they don’t know how to price their technology because of all the uncertainty in the technology.

They’re setting up massive government-backed trust funds to settle warranty claims on the batteries because they don’t know how they’ll behave.

So you’re going a different way.

Back in 2002, we started looking at battery technologies seriously and that’s when we met EEStor, which was developing ultra-capacitor technology.

People had taken runs at ultra capacitors, but typically the problem they hadn’t been able to get over was the voltage limitations. EEStor has developed new materials that get over it.

The only capacitor that I can think of is in a flash camera.

A flash camera has a battery that dumps power into a capacitor.

Capacitors in their current form are really great at taking power very quickly and discharging it very quickly. They’re not good at storing it; they lose the power very, very quickly.

Capacitors have been around for a long time and they’re a buffer technology — in the case of flash photography, they’re in between the flash tube and the plug in the wall.

They’re able to hold a whole bunch of power and displace it really, really quickly and recharge really, really quickly.

They have not typically been able to store large amounts of energy for a long period of time and that’s what EEStor is doing.

Can you show me one of these or show an investor one of these even if it doesn’t power a car but maybe an electric can opener?

No. Because of the way our agreement is structured with EEStor, it’s all milestone-based and the next milestone is a chemical milestone with third-party verification of the science.

The following milestone is delivery of a production prototype unit for a car and that’s late next year.

Who is EEStor anyway? I couldn’t find much about them.

The guys who have developed this technology come from hard-disk manufacturing.

If you think of a hard drive 10 years ago — think about a one-gigabyte hard drive 10 years ago — it was [huge] and it spun up like a jet. In my BlackBerry now, I’ve got 16 gigabytes of information storage.

They’re basically taking the best of battery technology and the best of capacitor technology to mash it into a solid-state energy storage device that doesn’t have any of the limitations of a chemical battery.

You found them in 2002 and you still can’t show me an example of what they do. Are they years late?

They’re not years late.

Everyone keeps saying that. But they developed the technology about 12 years ago — that’s when they did the patent work and the lab work. But they didn’t have a facility until 2006.

Now, in Austin, Texas, they have a state-of-the-art production facility that’s ready to deliver production units in 2009.

They’ve gone from a standing start to production in a three-year period. It’s pretty extraordinary.

They sure keep a low profile.

Lockheed Martin is involved, Kleiner Perkins (venture capital behind Google) is involved. They’ve got heavy hitters in this thing and they’re total stealth.

It’s not a scam because they’re not raising money and they’re not talking to anybody.

We have a unique relationship with them because I got it at the angel-investor level. If I’d met them after Kleiner, we wouldn’t be having this conversation.

Your deal is what?

ZENN invested $2.5-million (U.S.) in 2007 for an equity position of 3.8 per cent of EEStor plus options.

And we have a $2.5-million technology agreement that we inked back in 2004 and we’re halfway through the milestones on that.

It gives us an exclusive licence to use their technology in compact and subcompact cars.

But we don’t want to be in the car-building business. We’ve used the Intel model — our idea is that our drive system becomes kind of ubiquitous. The Intel inside of the car.

You’re more excited than even in the Feel Good days.

This kind of energy storage changes how we consider energy, period.

It displaces fossil fuel entirely. It’s not just about cars; it’s about energy. It’s for new cars and it’s for existing cars.

There are 800 million cars that are already on the planet — we can retrofit them, too.

The Ford Capri that we know in South Africa, “designed for the young at heart”, is refusing to grow old gracefully as it celebrates it 40th birthday among fans in Europe.

Production ended in 1986 but the Capri lives on in many owners’ clubs which will be celebrating the anniversary by getting together at various venues across Britain from early June to the end of September to show off their cars and swop stories.

The long-nosed Capri was launched in January 1969 and marketed as “the car you always promised yourself”. Ford says it was unashamedly aimed at a style-conscious generation and in its 18 years was Europe’s answer to the Ford Mustang sold nearly two million units and achieved iconic status with its target audience
The long-nosed Capri was launched in January 1969
.

It wasn’t a new name – there was a monster Ford in the US with the same name and Ford Britain had perhaps one of the ugliest cars yet made, the Consul Capri, earlier in the 1960’s.

Though Ford Britain (from whence most of this information came) doesn’t tell us so, the Ford Capri was a name used by the Ford Motor Company for three separate automobile models:

The Ford Consul Capri coupé (see picture) produced by Ford Britain from 1961-64
The Ford Capri coupe (the one we know in SA) produced by Ford Europe from 1969-1986 and in South Africa from 1970-72.
The Ford Capri convertible, produced by Ford Australia from 1989-1994.

For the serious drivers there was the Cologne-built RS2600 and the short-lived Halewood (Britain)-built, 200km/h RS3100 (the SA-built Perana was capable of close to 250km/h with a 0-100km/h time of seven seconds)
The Ford Consul Capri coupé was produced by Ford Britain from 1961-64
.

The Capri name was also used by Ford’s Lincoln-Mercury Division on a number of models which did not bear the Ford name:

Lincoln Cosmopolitan Capri 1950/51
Lincoln Capri, 1952-59
Mercury Comet Capri 1966
Mercury Capri 1967
Capri, 1970 -77
Mercury Capri 1979-1986
Mercury Capri 1991-94

…and then there was the beast of them all, the rip-snortin’ V8 Capri Perana built by Basil Green Motors right here in South Africa from 1970-73 as a conversion of the Capri 3000XL. Only 500 were built but many of those were exported to terrorise traffic in a number of European countries.

But back to the wimpish item produced in the UK… From the outset the Capri was about choice – 26 derivatives! There were 1.3, 1.6 and two-litre four-cylinder units and a three-litre V6 and custom packs allowed a degree of personal customising that broke new ground in the industry.

OPTION PACKS

A global oil crisis failed to slow the Capri’s progress and in 1974 the Mk.II was launched. Smoother design lines and simplified option packs ensured the Capri appealed to a wider market.

Star status, Ford says, was assured with regular Capri appearances in Britain in TV shows such as ‘Minder’ and ‘The Professionals’.

From 1978 the Mk III saw a tidying up of the Capri body and several special editions such as the Calypso and Laser (another name that lived on in SA). In 1981 Dunton’s then new Special Vehicle Engineering department unveiled its first project, the 120kW Capri 2.8 injection (the Perana made 210kW)

NOT BIGGEST, BUT…

The limited edition Capri 280, also known as the Brooklands Capri, signalled the end of the Capri era and the last car left the line in December 1986.

While the Capri was not the biggest seller in Ford history it is evident from the devoted fan base that it is certainly one of the most fondly remembered.

As Chrysler makes its way through bankruptcy court and General Motors tries to avoid the same fate, Ford is emerging as the strongest of the “Big Three” automakers.

Ford has taken no federal bailout money, but it’s pulling ahead of its rivals because of well-timed financial planning and a focused and attractive mix of product. The automaker also is profiting from the troubles at GM and Chrysler.

“[Ford’s Chief Executive Alan] Mulally went out and got credit when it was available, and he has positioned the automaker with a global strategy using the Fiesta and the Focus,” said George Magliano, director of automotive industry research at IHS Global Insight. “So they have gone way up the ladder, and of course they look a lot better because they didn’t ask for a bailout.”

Ford is pushing ahead with its plan to build small compact modern cars for the U.S. market.

On Wednesday the automaker said it will invest $550 million to convert its old Michigan Truck Plant into a facility that will build its next-generation Focus, which expected to roll off the line next year. The plant will also make a new battery-electric version of the Focus for the North American market. That vehicle is expected to debut in 2011.

The move could help sustain Ford’s sales momentum. North American auto sales remain dismal, but Ford added market share in April, thanks to record sales of its fuel-efficient midsize Fusion. And with Chrysler in bankruptcy and likely to see sales continue to plummet, Ford will continue to gain, analysts say.

Ford sales were down 32 percent from a year earlier, but that was good enough to push past Toyota to reclaim its position as the nation’s No. 2 car company, with 16 percent of the market. GM, the largest automaker with 21 percent of the market, saw sales drop 34 percent. Chrysler, which filed for a government-engineered bankruptcy Thursday, reported the sharpest decline among major automakers, falling 48 percent.

Key to Ford’s success is its strong cash position. Two years ago, having just arrived in Detroit from Boeing and profiting from a stronger credit market, Ford’s Chief Executive Alan Mulally mortgaged every conceivable asset owned by the automaker — including the iconic blue oval Ford logo — to the tune of $23 billion to finance its turnaround plan.

Today, Ford has around $30 billion on hand, enough to finance its day-to-day operating needs until sometime in 2010, when the auto market is expected to pick up again, according to analysts.

Ford also has managed its product mix effectively, notes Tom Appel, associate publisher of Consumer Guide Automotive, a guide for car buyers. In mid-2008, when the price of gasoline topped $4 a gallon for the first time, Ford was best-placed out of all the big U.S. automakers to “roll into the recession” and handle the sharp rise in gas prices, he said.

While Chrysler had developed a suite of compact and midsize cars, including the Dodge Avenger and the Jeep Compass, that all looked similar and unrefined, and were not especially fuel-efficient, Ford and GM were producing stronger vehicles in these categories, Appel said.

Ford’s Fusion and Mercury Milan, in particular, were perfect for when the recession hit and car-buyers “got conservative,” he said. Dodge’s midsize Avenger sold 1,400 units in April, but the Ford Fusion sold 18,000 units, Appel added. Ford also managed to work nice new interiors into the vehicles, and they have benefited from good press surrounding the introduction of the Ford Fusion hybrid.

– Ford invests $55 million to retool and reopen Cleveland Engine No. 1; 250 jobs have been added to the plant to produce the new engines

– EcoBoost uses gasoline turbocharged direct-injection technology for up to 20 percent better fuel economy, 15 percent fewer CO2 emissions and superior driving performance versus larger displacement engines

– EcoBoost will first be available this summer on the 2010 Lincoln MKS, Lincoln MKT, Ford Taurus SHO and Ford Flex, expanding availability to 90 percent of Ford’s nameplates by 201

CLEVELAND, May 19 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ — Ford Motor Company (NYSE: F) today marked the start of production of its advanced fuel-efficient EcoBoost engines at Cleveland Engine Plant No. 1 – a key step in Ford’s plan to deliver leading fuel economy across millions of vehicles.

Ford invested $55 million to retool and reopen the plant, which had been idled in 2007. Approximately 250 employees are returning to the plant to build the new engines.

EcoBoost technology combines turbocharging and direct gasoline injection to deliver up to 20 percent improved fuel economy, 15 percent fewer CO2 emissions and superior driving performance compared with larger displacement engines. The “downsize and boost” strategy provides consumers better fuel economy without sacrificing the power they want for driving performance.

“This launch of the first EcoBoost engine is a significant milestone in Ford’s overall commitment to deliver affordable fuel efficiency for millions,” said Barb Samardzich, vice president, Global Powertrain Engineering. “We’ve spent the past two years developing EcoBoost technology and now our customers will finally have the opportunity to experience what this engine delivers, the power of a V-8 with the fuel economy of a V-6.”

About EcoBoost

The 3.5-liter EcoBoost V-6 engine, the first V-6 direct-injection twin-turbocharged engine produced in North America, will make its debut in the 2010 Lincoln MKS, Lincoln MKT, Ford Taurus SHO and Ford Flex this summer. A V-6 EcoBoost engine will be available for the F-150 in 2010.

Ford will deliver EcoBoost across the full range of its product portfolio, from small cars to large trucks and by 2013, will offer EcoBoost engines, V-6s and I-4s, on 90 percent of its North American nameplates. Within three years, Ford expects to deliver 750,000 EcoBoost-equipped vehicles per year in North America and 1.3 million vehicles globally.

The 3.5-liter EcoBoost V-6 engine delivers 355 horsepower and a responsive 350 ft.-lb. of torque across a broad RPM range.

New Life for Historic Plant

Cleveland Engine Plant No. 1 opened in 1951 as Ford’s first engine plant in Ohio. Since then it has produced more than 35 million engines, including 24.3 million engines in the famous 302 and 5.0-liter V-8 family. In 2004, Ford invested $350 million into the plant for redesign and installation of an all-new assembly line as well as block, crankshaft and cylinder head machining lines.

Cleveland Engine Plant No. 1 has been outfitted with a flexible powertrain manufacturing system that can be easily reprogrammed to perform new tasks with minimal disruption to production.

“The ability to reprogram on the fly is a key feature of this new manufacturing system,” said Charles Binger, Cleveland site manager. “We don’t have to shut down an entire plant in order to make major changes to the line, helping to speed up modifications and keep downtime to a minimum.”

Plant upgrades also included a special turbocharger installation and test line. After the turbos are added, each EcoBoost engine is turned on speeds between 60-600 RPM using an electric motor to simulate running conditions. Unique to the Cleveland site, this “cold test” checks for proper buildup of pressure on the turbo output side before the engine ever leaves the factory.

To ensure quality is built into the engine from the outset, Ford developed a new, internal database for its operations. Each engine will be built with a sophisticated, embedded engine “birth history” that allows plant engineers to track every stage of production.

The engine history, maintained in a microchip database, includes hundreds of metrics and allows engineers to trace the precise path taken by any part so any quality control issue can be traced back to its source.

Extensive Employee Training

To prepare for production of the EcoBoost engine, Cleveland Engine Plant No. 1 work force participated in intensive quality training. Along with learning basic manufacturing operations, employees also learned to manage their own equipment and work area through “manufacturing work teams” at the facility.

“Training workers to do their jobs is one thing,” said Kevin Heck, Cleveland Engine No. 1 manufacturing manager. “But we’ve gone beyond that by giving team members significant responsibility for their output. It’s up to the hourly team members to produce a high-quality engine, and we’ve empowered them to make that happen.”

“We’re proud of the efforts we’ve made to improve quality,” said Mike Gammella, president, UAW Local 1250. “We have an outstanding work force at the Cleveland site, working together to ensure we’re not just competitive, but the best in the industry.”

Production Innovations through Supplier Collaboration

The twin-turbocharged 3.5-liter EcoBoost V-6 engine’s enhanced fuel-charging system can deliver as much as 2,150 PSI of fuel pressure – more than 35 times the pressure seen in a conventional port-fuel-injected V-6. Ford worked in tandem with Bosch, the fuel system supplier, to ensure that manufacturing and assembly was prepared for the demands of the advanced design.

“The EcoBoost line has a fully automated fuel-charging assembly and rundown station,” said Joseph Basmaji, Ford direct injection fuel system technical specialist. “It’s a new technology in manufacturing that’s only been made possible by close collaboration between Ford and our suppliers.”

The company’s director of North American sales, James D. Farley, said in an interview Monday that Ford had been pushing steadily to consolidate its dealers, rather than trying to end contracts or let them expire. Ford has reduced its dealer network by 700 since 2005, leaving it with 3,700 nationwide. Farley declined to specify Ford’s targets for additional reductions but said they would be small compared with the cuts by GM and Chrysler.

Last week, Chrysler, which is in bankruptcy, said it would terminate nearly 800 dealers, or 25 percent of its total, by next month.

GM said it would cut 1,100 dealers next year in the first phase of a plan to reduce its dealers by 40 percent, to about 3,600 from 5,900.

Ford is not accepting any government bailout money, in contrast to its two crosstown rivals. It is taking every opportunity to highlight the difference, even as it searches for ways to match some of the cost-cutting structural changes at GM and Chrysler.

Farley was particularly critical of the Chrysler plan, noting how it would affect millions of consumers with little warning.

“It seems very abrupt and unplanned,” he said. “You don’t orphan 4 million customers overnight without some fallout.”

Some of those customers, primarily those in rural areas, will migrate to Ford dealerships, he said. “It really depends on how GM and Chrysler handle these orphan owners,” he said. “If they don’t give them a lot of attention, it will result in consumers going to other brands.”

Chrysler has asked its bankruptcy judge to approve the immediate closing of its dealerships at a hearing in early June.

The company said it would try to help affected dealers sell their inventories, an estimated 44,000 vehicles, to surviving Chrysler dealers.

Farley said the way that was handled could affect the overall market for new cars in the short term.

“We are very concerned how they are going to handle those 44,000 units,” he said. “It’s like a liquidation sale now, and the biggest issue is whether they will cut prices to move the inventory.”

He said Ford would not offer greater sales incentives to match any price reductions that may result from the sell-off of inventories at GM and Chrysler. GM and Chrysler have said that by reducing the number of dealerships, the surviving showrooms will sell more vehicles, make more money and be able to invest more in dealerships and service.

“We don’t think it’s productive to just get rid of rural dealers,” Farley said. The cuts at GM and Chrysler were partly focused on smaller and rural dealers. Chrysler dealers are expected to protest the closings in bankruptcy court. GM has not completed plans for dealer reductions. It said last week that it was simply informing 1,100 of its dealers that their franchise agreements would not be renewed next year, and that further decisions on the timing were several weeks away.

By then, GM could be following Chrysler into bankruptcy. The company is under a June 1 deadline set by President Barack Obama to restructure its operations and reduce its debt, or be forced into a bankruptcy filing.

The Ford Galaxy in 2.0 TDCi Ghia trim has a 2-litre diesel engine that only produces 141bhp, but backs this up with 251lb.ft of torque. On the road, this engine feels punchy. Combined with a typically Ford slick six-speed gearbox, the Galaxy can be rowed along at quite a pace.

With the 2008 Car of the Year, the Ford S-MAX taking all the headlines and new, it’s easy to bypass that Ford also makes a more conventional people-car, the Ford Galaxy. Where the S-MAX is low, sporty and stylish, the Galaxy is tall and conventional, an old-school MPV.

Ford’s current advertising campaign for the Galaxy makes a big play on its seven-seat capacity, and indeed the Galaxy seems to be sufficiently spacious in all three rows (in 2-3-2 configuration) ensuring that none of the seven passengers feels too hard done by. The big problem is that seven passengers invariably means luggage for seven people; you just can’t have it both ways.

The boot space just simply isn’t big enough if all seven seats are in use. Carry less passengers, and that all changes. All the rear seats can be folded individually and all fold completely flat, creating just about any combination of seating/luggage compromise imaginable.

Ford originally likened the Galaxy to air travel. The simile still works, certainly the full length roof storage reminds one of an aeroplane, even if it’s not quite that capacious. Up front, the pilot and co-pilot have a commanding view even if the nose of the Galaxy completely drops out of sight, but with the base of the windscreen already a long way out front, it’s anyone’s guess where the front bumper finishes.

The tall shape of the Galaxy pays further dividends than the roof storage, as headroom is simply massive good for passengers, good for access to the rear row of seats too, as you don’t have to stoop so far to climb in.

The hedge fund run by David Einhorn added Ford debt to its holdings in the first quarter, Bloomberg News reported.

Greenlight snapped up Ford’s high-yield, high-risk bank loans at an average price of 37 cents on the dollar starting in the fourth quarter of 2008, Bloomberg said, citing a May 1 letter to investors.

The value of the debt had risen to 45 cents on the dollar at the end of the first quarter ended, Bloomberg said, citing Greenlight’s letter.

“It does not appear that Ford will need a government loan any time soon, if ever,” the letter reportedly said.

The automaker, which reported Friday that it beat first-quarter estimates and reduced its cash burn, plans to build 435,000 vehicles in North America during the current quarter. That is 250,000 fewer than last year, but 10,000 more than the company’s earlier guidance.

“We believe we have the dealer stocks well in line with what we see with the reception of new products,” said CEO Alan Mulally, on an earnings conference call Friday. “We believe we can go up a little bit more to support the real demand.”

The announcement comes a day after General Motors(GM Quote) said it has scheduled shutdowns at 13 of its 21 assembly plants in North America during the next three months, in an effort to remove 190,000 vehicles from production. It provides one more boost in Ford’s continuing effort to separate itself from its competitors.

In the first quarter, Ford produced 349,000 cars in North America, a 50% decline, as the auto industry moved to reduce inventory levels and struggled with sharply reduced sales. Ford sales dropped 41% in March. The company now projects full-year North America vehicle sales around 10.5 million, the lower end of its forecast range, but above the 9.8 rate of the first quarter.

“It’s been a long journey to get to a point where production matched demand, but now we’re in a position to adjust as we see opportunity in the market place, and we see good demand for vehicles such as the Fusion,” said Ford spokesman Mark Truby.

Overall industry sales tumbled 34% during the month, according to sales tracker Autodata. While that’s worse than the 30.8% decline predicted by Edmunds.com, it is slightly better than the 37% drop that occurred in March.

“We’re at the bottom, and we’re poised for U.S. vehicle sales to start rising,” said Mike DiGiovanni, head of sales analysis for General Motors, on a conference call with analysts and media. “The overall talk of GM and Chrysler is affecting [the] industry, but we expect a modest rise in sales in the second half of year.”

General Motors, Ford, Chrysler, Toyota, Honda Motor and Nissan all said Friday that April sales tumbled at least 25% from year-ago levels. With the exception of Toyota and Chrysler, the pace of April’s declines were not as steep as the previous month.

The seasonally adjusted annual sales rate, or SAAR, fell to 9.32 million vehicles, down from a pace of 9.86 million in March. That number is a bit disappointing, given that analysts had expected the rate to rise to 10 million vehicles. The 10 million figure is significant because sales slipped below that level for the first time in 26 years in January.

On the upside, auto sales typically ease from March to April and most automakers said they were seeing enough positive signs to signal an imminent recovery.

DiGiovanni cited pent-up demand from customers waiting on the sidelines as one reason for a looming boost in sales. Furthermore, he noted that used car prices are climbing, making new car deals more attractive.

Emily Kolinski Morris, Ford’s senior U.S. economist said Ford also anticipates a second-half recovery in vehicle sales, as Ford has noticed an uptick in customers opting for more content and features in cars, rather than scaled-down cheaper models.

Even Chrysler, which filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection Thursday, said the market has reached a bottom.

“The industry appears to have stabilized, as it’s been fairly level for the past four months,” said Jim Press, Chrysler LLC president. “We know where the bottom is and, as the economy struggles to recover, vehicle sales should follow.”

Industry analysts said they are afraid to declare a bottom in auto sales, especially since Chrysler’s bankruptcy could hurt buying sentiment. But experts say consumer confidence is improving, and they credit government efforts such as the so-called cash-for-clunkers program, which was introduced in January, for an increase in sales.

The legislation encourages the purchase of more fuel-efficient cars. Consumers with old, gas guzzlers could get $1,500 to $5,000 vouchers funded by the government to use toward the purchase of new cars.

“The industry is slowly picking up much-needed momentum but there is still a lot of risk,” said Jesse Toprak, director of industry analysis for Edmunds.com. “[A lot] depends on how consumer confidence is affected.”

GM: General Motors Corp (GM, Fortune 500)., the largest U.S. autoseller, reported that light vehicle sales fell 33.2% from year-ago levels, to 172,150, besting Edmunds.com’s forecast of a 36% drop. Sales were much improved from the 45% decline in March.

Its four brands which will be dropped in a restructuring of the company – Pontiac, Saturn, Saab and Hummer – each reported much bigger sales declines than GM’s overall drop, the worst being a 62% plunge in Hummer sales.

Precipitous auto sales declines in the past two years exacerbated the problems in the auto industry, especially for GM and fellow U.S. automaker Chrysler. GM has said that it will be forced into bankruptcy at the end of the month if its bondholders do not agree to forgive the debt owed to them in exchange for company stock.

Chrysler: Chrysler, which officially entered Chapter 11 bankruptcy on Thursday, said its sales fell by a much worse-than-expected 48% last month, compared with analysts’ expectations for a 39.2% drop. That’s also much worse than the 39% year-over-year decline in March.

The company, which is ending its employee incentive program this weekend, said that it would offer new incentives, starting May 5. Though few details were made available, the automaker plans to offer a mix of consumer rebates and customer loyalty certificates, as well as a continuation of its lifetime powertrain warranty program.

Chrysler also said it would unveil a new advertising campaign this weekend to encourage customers to buy Chrysler vehicles despite its bankruptcy. The full-page ads will debut in major newspapers beginning Saturday, and will say, “We’re building a new car company. Come see what we’re building for you.”

Ford outsells Toyota: Ford Motor Co. (F, Fortune 500) reported a 31.6% drop in sales from a year ago and its declines were broad based. That was a steeper decline than analysts’ forecast of a 27.2% drop but better than the 41% retreat in March.

Toyota (TM) also reported worse-than-expected sales, falling 41.9% year-over-year in April, compared to expectations of a 40.2% decline. April’s slipping sales outpaced the 39% drop the company registered in March.

The 129,898 vehicles sold by Ford’s domestic brands in April outpaced Toyota’s 126,540 sales. It was the first time Ford outpaced Toyota’s monthly sales since April 2007.

Though most of Ford’s car models fell by more than 23%, sales of its mid-sized Fusion model actually rose by 21.7% last month, buoyed by the new hybrid version of the car.

Other automakers: Honda (HMC) reported a 25% decline in April sales, better than the 26.9% forecasted by Edmunds.com. Nissan’s sales fell 38%, much worse than analyst’s prediction of a 27.3% decline. 

It starts by reading your vehicle’s PCM file and saving it. From there, you load the gas or diesel software (whichever corresponds to your application) onto your laptop or PC, and make adjustments accordingly. You not only select the tune type, transmission firmness, and all the other things you can on any other tuner; but you can tune for the mods you’ve made to your vehicle. (i.e. cold air intake, exhaust, injectors etc.) This to me was one of the best things about this tuner, due to the fact that my transmission had been rebuilt and updated to the 2003 model year. This presented a problem with several performance companies as they programmed for an ’01 Excursion with an ’01 transmission. With Sniper, it tunes specifically to your vehicle, no matter what’s been done to it. Reflashes, rebuilt transmissions, engines, and whatever else have virtually no effect on whether your Ford car, truck, or SUV can be tuned. Once these adjustments are made, you can load them to any one of the open slots, load them into your vehicle and you’re off.

First Impressions

Once everything was loaded up and I went on the first test drive, I was amazed at how smooth the acceleration was. It also had plenty of power and low-end you could really feel; the shifts were also firm, precise, and consistent. Something else I noticed was that this tuner utilized the stock shift points instead of modified ones. This was something I wanted more than anything with a tuner. It was also something I couldn’t get because most performance companies greatly modify the shift point and other aspects to adjust for the increase in power. I liked the changes they made with my rebuilt ’03 tranny and didn’t want to loose them, with the Sniper; I didn’t have to make any sacrifices. After some smooth in-town driving, it was time to see what this thing could really do. I mashed the pedal to the floor and it (my truck) shot down the road and firmly pressed me into my seat. While I had my foot to the floor, I was able to take a quick glance into my mirror and I didn’t notice very much black smoke. This may sound like something bad, but it isn’t. I’ve heard it said time and time again, that black smoke is basically wasted power. In this case, power was efficiently used and not wasted as I only saw a slight haze under heavy acceleration.

On the freeway

I had to make a business trip out of town so I took this opportunity to stretch my truck’s legs and see how the Sniper does on the freeway. I enjoy the open road so I decided to take my time, set the cruise at 65, and relax as I had a two-hour drive in front of me. On the freeway, the engine was just so quiet it was almost unbelievable. The freeway I was on had a few small and good size hills that would give a stock truck a run for its money. With the Sniper, my truck “walked” up the big and small hills with very little effort or use of the turbo. This amazed me because most of the time, your truck will really start to use the turbo or dip into passing gear depending on the load. With the Sniper at the 75hp tune, this trip netted me 21.4 mpg when I normally see about 18.6 mpg. (Your results may vary)

Towing

A good friend of mine had a car he was fixing up for charity and needed it towed, as it didn’t run. This was yet another opportunity to see how the Sniper would react. We picked up an auto-transport, loaded the car up, and went out. Things were a little rough at first, but after the first � a mile things came together and it was smooth sailing. Around town, my truck never missed a beat and did the job as if the trailer wasn’t there. On the freeway, it briefly leaned into the turbo to make its way up some of the hills, but again, it didn’t have to work very hard to get the job done.

Conclusions

The Sniper, although not quite what I expected it to be, is something that packs a quite a punch while keeping things cool and not sacrificing anything.

Test Vehicle: 2001 Ford Excursion 2wd
Engine: 7.3-Liter Powerstroke Diesel

Modifications Exhaust: 4” SS MBRP system with Aeroturbine 4040 Muffler mounted as close to the down pipe as possible
Intake: Homemade with NAPA 6637 filter
Transmission: 2003 MY Ford Remanufactured
Average MPG with Sniper tuner: Consistent 17 mpg (mixed driving, mostly city) @ 45-50 MPH 21-22 mpg observed on the freeway @ 65mph. (your results may vary)
Test conditions: Mostly sunny, between 80-100 degrees Fahrenheit, with little or no humidity.

As with any race engine program, the parts and pieces eventually find their way into other forms of racing. The “Yates” Cylinder Head developed in the early 1990’s is very popular with today’s Mustang drag racers. Ford Racing’s C3 and D3 NASCAR cylinder head is finding its way to the drag racing market too.

With “Pro 5.0” founding father Brian Wolfe at the helm of Ford Racing and Doug Yates looking outside of NASCAR for new business, the FR9 could be between the frame rails of a Mustang Outlaw drag car in a couple of years.

In the 1960s, Ford had a lot of success building racing engines off mainstream production blocks and heads. The “FE” engines were competitive from the start, powering such drivers as Ned Jarrett and David Pearson to championships. During the 1970s, when NASCAR mandated a 358-cubic-inch limit, Ford’s “Cleveland” V-8 engine was called into duty.

To say that Ford Racing has done a lot over the years with the current production-based racing engine is an understatement. In 1991, Ford switched from the Cleveland-based small-block V-8 to the venerable 351 “Windsor” engine. Other than minor cylinder head updates over its 18 years of service in NASCAR, the basic Windsor block configuration has remained unchanged. Chevrolet, meanwhile, has launched two updated engine packages, and there have been brand-new engine programs from two other manufacturers, Dodge and Toyota, who have entered the ultra-competitive series

To get the inside story on this historic race-engine program, we visited the Roush-Yates engine shop in Mooresville, North Carolina. Over two days, we toured the impressive facility and visited with David Simon and Doug Yates.

David Simon and Doug Yates of the FR9 Team – in front of their crown jewel.

New Engine Development FR9 was Ford Racing’s first opportunity to develop an engine that wasn’t constrained by mass-production engine dimensions.

In July 2007, Ford Racing and Roush-Yates Engines sat down together and assembled the new program. The first step was to determine the best possible engine dimensions, working within NASCAR’s requirements for any new engine submission. The NASCAR engine “box” is fairly tight, and manufacturers don’t have a lot of leeway in design parameters.

Per NASCAR regulations, “FR9” is a 90-degree V-8 that displaces 358 cubic inches and retains the classic two-valve pushrod technology. But there were a lot of innovations on the table, so the engineers designed a variety of key technical advances into FR9, including front and rear engine-plate mounts; a new head bolt pattern that improves gasket seal and strengthens cylinder bores; and a new coolant-flow design that reduces hot spots at critical locations in the block and heads.

Other updates include special in-block oil feed passages, improved fasteners and pre-formed sealing components that allow technicians to disassemble and assemble the engine faster.

“With FR9, we now have the opportunity to change valve angles and other aspects of the engine that we’ve never been able to change before,” said David Simon. “It was a huge opportunity for us to research the optimum setup for these engines. Some [things] you can change, and some you can’t.”

Simon explained: “You see things like valve angle and it’s very tight. Do you want to be at 10 degrees or 11 degrees, or somewhere in-between? In other cases, for things like spark plug position, it’s not regulated – so we went and did an optimization loop on spark plug location and discovered some things. Now we have a new spark plug location relative to the current engine, and we found it made quite a difference.”

The new engine’s power potential begins where the old engine’s maximum left off. The FR9 even requires preparation time. It took more than 100 hours to prepare an R452 block casting for build-out. The new engine block takes less than an hour. The prep process consists of engine bearing installation, followed by a final honing before it’s ready to assemble. The new engine will save Roush-Yates customers a lot of money on engine-lease programs, simply from the ease in prepping the block.

Doug Yates has been very hands-on in the development of the FR9 engine. From someone who has done it all – from breakdown room to engine tuning – Doug is excited about the project. “When I started working in 1990 right out of college, the engine was making 650 horsepower,” said Yates. “The same block architecture today makes 900 horsepower. That’s pretty amazing, considering it is carbureted, not to mention all the carburetion rules.

Now they have a chance to design an all-new engine, and it’s really exciting to be a part of the development. In 40 years, somebody is going to look back and say, ‘Those guys are pretty smart,’ or, ‘Maybe they should have changed something here,’ or all of the above.”

The Roush/Yates facility where the lion share of the development occured.

Doug is still impressed with the performance of the Cleveland- and Windsor-based engines, but he embraces the opportunity to help design a dedicated race engine for Ford. “It has taken 40 years to understand not just what we needed from an engine standpoint, but from an application standpoint,” said Yates.

“If we were to go and hire a company to design the engine, they would not have that understanding of the needs of the team, the series and the sport. This is our moment in time where we can say we’ve worked all these years to make this product the best for our teams. Now we hope to go out with it and win races and help Ford Motor Company.”

Below is the official “press release” from Ford on the FR9:

Ford Racing and Roush Yates Engines will debut the new “FR9” engine during the 2009 NASCAR Sprint Cup Series season.

DEARBORN, Mich., January 22, 2009 – Ford and Roush Yates Engines already enjoy a reputation for producing some of the best power and reliability in the sport, but its latest NASCAR-approved engine has raised expectations to an even higher level for 2009.

Code-named “FR9,” this new piece is the first purpose-built NASCAR racing engine to ever come out of Ford Motor Company. Its design has been spearheaded and developed by Ford Racing engineer David Simon, and famed engine builder Doug Yates, along with input from legendary Ford Racing engine engineer Mose Nowland.

“This is an exciting time for us to say the least, especially with the way our two companies have worked so well together on this project,” said Yates. “I’ve never had the opportunity to work on a NASCAR engine with a clean sheet of paper, but that’s basically what we’ve done and I’ve enjoyed every second. We feel we’ve got a piece that will not only be better than what we’ve got now, but will give us room to grow.

“With the exception of a few cylinder head changes through the years, we’ve had the same engine since 1991 and have been able to squeeze out every ounce of power and speed possible,” continued Yates. “What’s got me so excited is we’ve won races and championships with an engine many consider old, and this new piece is definitely a notch above, so we’ve got a lot to look forward to for years to come.”

There are three key differences between “FR9” and the current engine. First, the cooling system has been re-worked and will allow teams to optimize the amount of tape they can put on the front grille and improve downforce. Second, the valve train has been improved, and, third, the production and assembly of “FR9” will be much easier than today’s model.

Another thing is for certain, this isn’t your father’s 351 because “FR9” does not retain any of the original production 351 dimensions as the current model.

“Our main priority when we started this project was to get the bones of the engine right. We wanted to make sure we had the proper layout, the right block structure and that the overall skeleton of the engine was correct,” said Simon. “Even though we’ve been working on these engines for decades and know a lot of things about them, there was still a lot we didn’t know. In that case, we went and did some testing to get the answer.”

That data driven philosophy for designing the engine was crucial for building an engine that would not only be reliable and efficient, but powerful as well.

“It was a completely different mindset and approach to making power,” recalled Simon. “We did not finalize any part of the engine until we acquired the data that told us what was going to be our optimum setting or optimum dimension. The key to all of this in the first phase of our development was to produce as much power through the design of the engine as possible and to make sure we had the very best layout, the very best dimension, and the very best combination of dimensions that we could within the framework of the rules.”

Since taking over as Ford Director of North America Motorsports in August, Brian Wolfe has had to learn a lot in a short amount of time, but he’s been impressed with how well “FR9” has developed.

“Before taking over this job, I worked in powertrain development at Ford for 26 years, and it’s always great to see a new product,” said Wolfe. “To see the way everyone has worked together on this project is extremely gratifying and I know when “FR9” is ready for the race track, we’re going to be spending a lot of time in Victory Lane.”

Just when “FR9” is ready for competition remains to be seen, but a tentative target date is the second-half of the 2009 season.

“We’re not going to rush this engine into competition until we’re 100 percent sure it’s going to meet our strict standards,” said Yates. “We don’t feel a need to rush because our current engine is still strong and that gives us the luxury to take our time and make sure we do “FR9” right. I know we’ve got a winner here, and I can’t wait to see it on the track.”

For background information on the car build check out the 9500rpm.com website.

George Wright and Jimmy Ronzello are longtime Ford racers. They have raced Thunderbirds, Probes and Mustangs in NHRA and IHRA competition. When it was announced that Ford Racing was launching the Cobra Jet parts program they were the perfect candidates to start the conversion project. They were close to Dearborn, had a background with Fords and could provide feedback to the CJ engineers on what worked and what did not work.

Jim and George took delivery of the 2007 Shelby 500 convertible in early 2008 with plans to build it to fit the NHRA Stock eliminator class. Once the Cobra Jet program was announced they obtained all of the necessary Cobra Jet unique parts like the hood, hood scoop, front fascia, 9-inch “Cobra Jet” real axle, Team Z anti-roll bar rear suspension, lightweight radiator support, and other unique parts to construct the car. A 10 point sub-9 second legal roll cage was built to protect the driver and provide support to the S197 frame. The “Cobra Jet” was approved by NHRA and was placed in the NHRA classification guide on 12/18/2008.

Midway through the home built project, with some input form Ford Racing, they decided to build the car to race in both NHRA Super Stock and Stock class. Plans are to run Super Stock at select NHRA National events and Stock Eliminator at Division 3 events in Ohio, Illinois, Michigan and Indiana. With minor updates the car is NHRA Super Stock legal and its a chance to try the stock suspension set-up in a quicker class. Stock suspension mustangs are running in the 7-second zone in other race series so an 8-second or 9-second pass should be easy for this Cobra Jet.

The car has been testing recently at Milan Dragway and has proven to be competitive. It’s cool to see a stick-shifted Cobra Jet convertible competing in the Super Stock and Stock category. It shows the versatility of the new Cobra Jet parts program. We’re cheering Jim and George on to make the car competitive in both classes.

Ford F-150 SVT Raptor R
The Ford F-150 SVT Raptor R race truck, based on the production version of the upcoming 2010 F-150 SVT Raptor, survived the grueling 41st Tecate SCORE Baja 1000, finishing the 631-mile race in 25:28:10. The Ford F-150 SVT Raptor R race truck that participated in the Baja 1000 was a collaboration between the Ford Special Vehicle Team (SVT), Ford Racing, and Foutz Motorsports Inc. The pickup was entered into the race to test the durability and performance of the 2010 F-150 SVT Raptor, which goes on sale in the summer of 2009.

“We engineered the F-150 SVT Raptor to be the best high-speed off-road performance truck available right off the showroom floor, and finishing the Baja 1000 proves this,” stated Jamal Hameedi, SVT’s Chief Nameplate Engineer. “Now we need to analyze all the engineering data from the race and apply lessons learned to the production truck, ensuring that the truck delivered to customers exceeds their expectations.”

Prepared for racing in long distance off-road endurance events, the Ford F-150 SVT Raptor R uses stock components of the F-150 SVT Raptor, including the transmission, brakes, and axles. The frame-the part of the truck that will take the most stress-is the same proven fully boxed frame that delivers class-leading towing and hauling in the all-new 2009 Ford F-150 that went on sale in October. The Raptor race truck is powered by a specially calibrated version of the available 6.2-liter V-8 engine, making 500 horsepower. Even if the typical Ford customer will not be putting his truck through the punishing paces of the Baja 1000, the point is he could. The Ford F-150 SVT Raptor R in the Baja 1000 also served as a test bed for the development of a lineup of race-proven, desert-tested, off-road performance parts that will be available through the Ford Racing catalog.

“This was very exciting for all involved,” said Jamie Allison, sales and marketing manager for Ford Racing. “Even with the extreme capability of the F-150 SVT Raptor right out of the box, we know our customers will want to take its performance to an even higher level. This race truck will be invaluable to Ford Racing as we examine what performance parts we’ll be able to offer customers for the production Raptor.”

Ford brought some of the best Stock class off-road truck drivers together to drive the F-150 SVT Raptor R in the Baja 1000. Drivers of record were Steve Olliges, Randy Merritt, Greg Foutz, Bud Brutsman, and SVT Vehicle Development Engineer, Gene Martindale.

And the award goes to…
Vic Edelbrock, President and CEO of the Edelbrock Corporation, recently awarded the Vic Edelbrock Sr. Memorial Scholarship award at the SEMA Show in Las Vegas, Nevada. Now in its fifth year, this scholarship is endowed by Vic Edelbrock and the Edelbrock Corporation in support of continued automotive education through the WTI Foundation and WyoTech. This scholarship is based on an essay submission and is awarded annually to a WyoTech student who exemplifies hard work, dedication to the automotive industry, and outstanding citizenship. The 2008 recipient of this $5,500 scholarship award is Barry Derheim of Sioux Falls, Iowa.

10 Mostly Worthless Facts
1. Factory GM accessory brackets won’t allow you to mount a GM A/C compressor on an iron-block LS1 in a ‘73-’87 GM truck. The A/C compressor hits the passenger-side framerail.

2. Guns N’ Roses aka “Axl Rose and his friends today” finally put out a new album.

3. By 1936, Ford had already produced 3 million trucks.

4. From 1967 to 1971, the third digit in a General Motors VIN number indicated whether the vehicle had a six- or eight-cylinder engine and standard or deluxe interior.

5. The width of a rim is measured between the tire mounting flanges or beads.

6. Vanilla Ice doesn’t rock a sport truck. Then again, did Vanilla Ice really ever rock anything?

7. Spraying liquid nitrous onto your skin will cause it to fall off. Seriously.

8. In the movie, Smokey and the Bandit, Burt Reynolds’ truck driving cohort, The Snowman, was played by country singer Jerry Reed. Reed also sang the theme song to all three movies.

9. The gauntlet has been thrown down by past cover-truck owner, Mike Cotten. He’s showing up to the Sport Truck Challenge in ‘09 with his Chevy and plans on running into the 9s with LS engine power in order to take a shot at William Lerner’s title.

10. The 6.4-liter PowerStroke diesel engine makes 350 hp at 3,000 rpm and 650 lb-ft of torque at 2,000 rpm.

Hall-Of-FamerThe Automotive Hall of Fame, the highest place of honor in the International Motor Vehicle Industry, has selected Gale Banks to receive one of their 2009 Distinguished Service Citations.

Sema Lawyers At Work For You!
The SEMA Action Network defeated California legislation to require annual (rather than biennial) smog-check inspections for vehicles 15 years old and older. The bill would also have required that funds generated through the additional inspection fees be deposited into an account, which could then be used to scrap older cars. In an effort to sneak the bill through in the closing days of the legislative session, California Assemblyman Dave Jones amended a completely unrelated bill with the annual smog-check inspection language.

While pre-’76 motor vehicles would have remained exempt under existing California law, this proposal ignored the fact that vehicles 15 years old and older still constitute a small portion of the overall vehicle population and are a poor source from which to look for emissions reductions. This latest action represents the second time the SAN was able to defeat this legislation.

Say What?
The Scenario: We’re talkin’ serious talk for a change of pace. The Big Three-General Motors, Ford, and Chrysler-are asking the federal government for a multi-billion dollar handout because they don’t want to or can’t claim bankruptcy to keep their respective businesses running in the current economic recession.

As taxpaying citizens of the US of A, do you think the government should bail out three of our country’s largest industrial giants like it just did for banking institutions, or should we let them go down in flames?

Kevin: First of all, who is gonna save us? Aren’t we already in a multi-trillion dollar deficit? Also, isn’t our economic system based on capitalism where only the strongest businesses survive? In that sense, I think we should let them fall. If they can’t make it on their own they should fold and let the real Americans take over. I’m talking about the mom and pop repair shops, mechanic shops, and even hot rod shops. Instead of putting our money toward new cars, we should restore and keep our old jewels alive. Also, by giving our money to these small businesses we will support real people who spend money and create a better cash flow throughout our economy.

Calin: I absolutely think the government should help. If these companies go under there will be a lot of American people out of work. With Americans out of work, they won’t really be buying anything and the problem will just get worse. These companies can’t file for bankruptcy because if they do all of the vehicles still in stock will become devalued. As we all know, it’s not how much you pay for a truck it’s how much can you sell it for when you are done. If the parent company is gone, there will be no security for the next guy who wants to buy it.

Mike: As much as I dislike the idea of rewarding companies for screwing up, the ripple effect of losing the Big Three will devastate this country. From the corner diner whose patrons come from the new truck dealership next door, that will likely close down, to the company that makes the knobs for the A/C controls that will likely fold when it loses those huge contracts, to the charities that rely on the Big Three’s donations, the amount of people who will face financial hardship will be beyond any scale I can imagine. However, giving a financial bailout to domestic auto manufacturers isn’t going to fix the real problem and that is the union labor that drives up the price of building trucks in America. Unless the manufacturers can start paying smaller wages to the workers who build our trucks, then a bailout isn’t going to keep the inevitable from happening. Ford, Chevy, and Chrysler simply can’t compete economically with foreign companies that can produce trucks at a lower cost. The business model just doesn’t work.

Andy: It’s a sad state of affairs when companies get so huge that their very welfare is depended upon by so many other people. This is one of those grin-and-bear-it situations where we will have to bailout the automotive industry. Let’s hope that their future production line will be able to compete with the quality of vehicles being turned out by the European and Japanese giants and gain worldwide support to keep this from happening again.

Sport Truck Slang Term O’ The Month#143:
multiplexing (mu?l’ti-ple?ks-ing) n. It’s not just a place to buy twelve-dollar nachos and eight-dollar popcorn while some kid kicks the back of your seat for two hours straight during a cheesy chick movie that your girlfriend made you watch even though you wanted to see The Bourne Supremacy. Multiplexing is a type of vehicle wiring system that doesn’t use a fuse box to distribute power to the headlights, stereo, and other accessories. Instead, it uses a microprocessor to distribute the power. The cool thing is you can program the microprocessor to move power any way you want, no matter how many aftermarket accessories you add to your truck. Find out more by visiting www.isispower.com.

John Calvert, driving a 40th Anniversary ‘08 Mustang FR500CJ Cobra Jet, duplicated the success of the original ‘68 Cobra Jet when he won the AA Stock Eliminator class at the 2009 NHRA Winternationals.

In 1968, drag racing legend Al Joniec drove a ‘68 Cobra Jet Mustang to victory at Pomona in the NHRA Winternationals in the CJ’s competition debut.

“I couldn’t be happier for Brent Hajek and John Calvert, who have taken the car that we designed and created a championship race car in just six weeks,” said Brian Wolfe, Director of Ford North America Motorsports. “I am especially happy that John was able to drive the Al Joniec tribute car that won in 1968 to a victory in 2009. It is an unbelievable debut for the Cobra Jet.

“I couldn’t be prouder of the team who got the car together, and a lot of credit needs to go to the group at Ford Racing who developed the Cobra Jet and once again developed a race car that, like the Mustang FR500C, won in its initial outing.”

“I am really excited and pleased at the result,” said Calvert. “The thing I am most pleased about is that Ford Racing thought about this project and reached out to the grassroots level of racing. This wasn’t an easy race weekend; in fact, I would say it was difficult. The weather certainly created some consistency issues, especially with an iffy track. Still, the Cobra Jet ran very well in the elimination rounds and we were able to bring home the trophy.”

Driving for Oklahoma-based Brent Hajek Motorsports, Calvert piloted the Cobra Jet through a chaotic opening weekend that stretched over six days due to rain delays. Calvert, a former world champion (1991 Stock) and a three-time NHRA Winternationals champion, normally runs a ‘68 Cobra Jet. He agreed to drive the Hajek ‘08 entry in Stock Eliminator at the Winternationals.

“How cool is this? It was like a storybook ending that was meant to be,” said Hajek, who entered four Cobra Jet Mustangs at Pomona. “It is our first time entering a national event and we won! This program was always about paying tribute and respect to the drivers from’68 who started the legend of the Cobra Jet. This was about upholding their honor and everyone involved with this project deserves a great deal of credit.

“The people at Ford Racing did an awesome job building these cars, and my guys deserve credit for getting the CJ’s race-ready in an unbelievably short amount of time. And credit also goes to the drivers, especially John Calvert, who brought this all the way home. I am so proud of this group and I hope the legends from ‘68 – Al Joniec, Gas Ronda, Hubert Platt, and Randy Ritchey – are proud of us.”

For decades, the Mustang has been the preeminent car in many forms of motorsports, including drag racing. Adding to the rich and successful racing history of Ford’s iconic pony car, the ‘08 Cobra Jet Mustang is a factory-built race car that is NHRA-legal and ready for the drag strip. It is the first purpose-built race car from Ford for drag racing since the original Cobra Jet Mustang.

The original Cobra Jet Mustang was conceived by drag racing legend Bob Tasca, the competition-oriented Ford dealer in Rhode Island who at the time operated one of Ford’s most successful retail operations. Tasca looked to the Ford parts shelf when he wanted to upgrade the engines on some of the Mustangs that he was selling and came up with the KR-8 conversion package for his performance customers.

Henry Ford II announced that Ford would put together several of the Tasca 428-powered Mustangs for drag teams competing in the 1968 Winternationals, where two of the Mustangs made it into the finals and Al Joniec went on to win the Super Stock championship. After the car’s success at Winternationals, Ford announced that it would be producing the 428 Cobra Jet engine.

The ‘08 Cobra Jet Mustang joins Ford Racing’s stable of championship-capable customer Mustangs: the Mustang FR500S, the Mustang FR500C, and the Mustang FR500GT. All are turn-key cars available via the Ford Racing Performance Parts catalog and through Ford dealers.

The FR500 series of Mustangs are race-ready cars, designed by Ford Racing engineers for performance-conscious customers, that can be rolled right off of a truck and win in competition.

Picture: Wikipedia

The Lamborghini club is exclusive and many people who could afford a Shelby GT500 would never be allowed admittance, but owners of both cars still enjoy a good old drag race, and a European video shows there isn’t much of a contest between cars with a $150,000 deficit between them.

While the Shelby GT500 in this video purportedly has 600 horsepower, 40 more than the Gallardo, it also weighs over 600lbs more and has two fewer cylinders (though about the same displacement) than the European welterweight. The race from what looks like a 10mph roll, taking hard launches out of the equation, and it’s never even a contest. The Gallardo simply blows away the Shelby, leaving the snake slithering away in the rear view mirror of the Gallardo, which is Spanish for gallant and Italian for striking, both appropriate names if you ask me. But give the Shelby $75,000 in modifications and see who the winner is afterwards.

TOKYO – At the 1995 Tokyo Motor Show, Toyota unveiled a futuristic car powered by a gasoline-electric engine that sounded part Jetsons, part Star Trek. With this so-called hybrid engine under the hood, the concept car was called the Prius.

Fast forward to Wednesday’s opening of the 2005 Motor Show. America’s Big Three auto makers – Ford Motor, General Motors and the Chrysler division of DaimlerChrysler – were deploying slinky models to drape themselves over concept cars running in some kind of alternative fashion: hydrogen fuel cells or gasoline-electric engines.

Playing catch-up a decade late, the world’s auto giants now find that they have to lease or buy technology from Toyota. Often they must buy parts from Japanese companies where Toyota has strong influence, either as a buyer or as an investor. Last month, Ford officials complained that the Aisin AW Company, a Japanese auto parts supplier, was placing a low priority on transmissions ordered by Ford.

On Wednesday, in the neutral setting of the auto show, executives from the companies met and tried to iron out supply problems.

“It made sense to go with the Japanese manufacturer for the first hybrid,” Richard Parry-Jones, Ford’s chief technical officer, said in an interview as journalists thronged the show’s press day. “But now we feel it is very important to try to build partnerships with U.S.- based suppliers.”

While General Motors struggles with a $1.6 billion third-quarter loss announced Monday and Ford braces for quarterly earnings due Thursday, Toyota is plowing some of its record $10.5 billion in profits this year into new fuel-saving technologies that it sees as the wave of the future in an era of high gasoline prices.

Much of Toyota’s buzz in the United States is over the Prius, a hybrid that is selling this fall at twice the volume of last year. With gasoline prices stuck at an average of almost $3 a gallon, Toyota now measures its inventory of Prius cars in the United States in hours, rather than days.

“Toyota has done a masterful job of getting the car out there at the right time, of scooping the industry,” John W. Mendel, Honda’s top marketing official in the United States, acknowledged Wednesday.

But now Toyota, Japan’s largest company, is plugging away to win world leadership in hybrid technology. It has not only plowed untold billions of dollars into developing hybrid engines and systems, but it also has moved quietly and aggressively to cultivate a network of suppliers for critical hybrid parts.

Two weeks ago, this effort became plain when Toyota invested heavily in two suppliers of specialized batteries for hybrid gas-electric cars. On Oct. 5, Toyota raised its ownership in one of the battery makers, the Panasonic EV Energy Company, to 60 percent from 40 percent.

It also bought, from G.M., a large holding in Fuji Heavy Industries. This company makes not only Subaru cars, but also a lithium ion battery, a smaller and lighter battery seen as crucial to the future of hybrid cars.

“Forget the cars; the battery is what they are after,” Kurt Sanger, Japan automotive analyst for Macquarie Securities, said in an interview.

Uneasy about Toyota’s control of Panasonic, a leading battery producer, Honda persuaded Sanyo Electric to make batteries for Honda’s hybrid, the Insight, and the hybrid versions of the Civic and the Accord.

Ford, which also buys hybrid batteries from Sanyo, feels uneasy about Toyota’s control of some parts, either directly or though pressure on parts suppliers. Ford officials have said that they want to procure more parts from their own factories or from American parts makers.

“To get the volume we want, we need to produce them here in the United States, and we need to actually be able to be much more in control of the situation,” Philip R. Martens said in late September, before he stepped down Oct. 10 as Ford’s top product development executive.

Referring to the problems with Aisin, he added, “We set a path to control our own destiny on this, and we are going to control our own destiny.”

For their part, Toyota officials say they have not held back on any hybrid parts to other companies. A Toyota spokesman, Paul Nolasco, said it was not interfering in Ford’s relationship with Aisin, which is a major supplier to Toyota. Toyota sells hybrid components to Nissan, but not to Ford.

“With the exception of the battery and the converter-inverter device, everything is made at Toyota,” Mr. Nolasco said of parts for the Prius.

American automakers are looking for parts suppliers that are not under the control of Toyota.

“Given the increasing volumes of hybrids in North America, there clearly is a need for a North American supply base,” said Mark T. Hogan, president of Magna International, a Canadian auto parts giant.

Some analysts say American car manufacturers are looking for scapegoats.

“When Ford comes along and says that Toyota is manipulating the supply, it’s nonsense,” said Mr. Sanger. “Toyota developed it all. Toyota does a lot of it in-house. Someone is pointing a finger at Bill Ford saying, Why don’t you make more hybrids? So he has to point the finger at someone else.”

When Toyota announced in August that early in the next decade all of Toyota’s cars would be offered in hybrid versions and that the company would sell one million hybrids a year, it seemed to catch Detroit flat-footed.

In September, Ford said it would increase hybrid production tenfold, to 250,000 gas-electric cars by 2010. Now, almost every major company has announced a hybrid.

“Hybrids, yes, we got behind,” Lawrence D. Burns, G.M.’s vice president for research and planning, said in an interview here Tuesday. “But is that race over? Not at all.”

Not everyone is optimistic about hybrids. “Every manufacturer will have one or two hybrid vehicles in its lineup in five years, but the market will not go beyond less than 5 percent,” said Helmut Panke, chairman of BMW, dismissing hybrids as a niche technology. “But the real challenge is to reduce the fuel consumption of the standard engine. Hybrid is not a substitute for that.”

Mr. Burns at G.M. has bet heavily on fuel-cell cars, which run on hydrogen. “We believe we can design and validate a competitive fuel-cell propulsion system by 2010,” he said, as he stood next to a fuel-cell concept vehicle called the Sequel.

Rival carmakers note that Toyota unleashed a $30 million advertising campaign to push the hybrid.

“Toyota has this big cash hoard,” David Iida, assistant to the president of American Honda, said Tuesday from Detroit. “They can lose as much as they want to, and use the car as an advertisement. We can’t compete with them on that level.”

DEARBORN, Mich. — Inside the Ford Motor Company, it was called Project M — to build a prototype of a totally electric, battery-powered car in just six months.

When it was started last summer, the effort was considered a tall order by the small team of executives and engineers assigned to it. After all, the auto industry can take years to develop vehicles.

But Ford was feeling pressure from competitors, and decided it could not afford to fall behind in the rapidly expanding race to put electric cars in dealer showrooms.

“Frankly, I think it’s a gamble not to do it,” William C. Ford Jr., the company’s executive chairman, said in an interview. “It’s clear that society is headed down this road.”

Certainly, Ford and other carmakers are betting billions of dollars on this new direction, at a time when they can ill afford it and when Detroit is facing government scrutiny after the $17.4 billion bailout of G.M. and Chrysler.

Throughout the cavernous Detroit auto show hall, typically the high temple of brute horsepower, auto companies will be competing this week to establish their green and electric credentials. On Sunday, when the show opens, Ford will announce plans for its electric vehicle, including a goal to start selling them by 2011.

These are risky bets. There are no guarantees that consumers — for all their stated concerns about global warming, dependence on foreign oil and unpredictable gas prices — will buy enough of them. They may balk, for example, at the limits on how far they can drive on a single charge.

But the companies could get some help from President-elect Barack Obama. He has said he is committed to promoting cleaner cars, and may propose incentives to encourage consumers and businesses to buy them.

Ford plans to make only 10,000 of the electric vehicles a year at first — very few by Detroit standards — to test the market cautiously.

Still, Mr. Obama’s interest, and the scope of projects by Ford and others, is convincing some environmentalists that the industry is serious about electric cars.

“I think the days of the gasoline engine are numbered, even if we don’t know exactly what that number is,” said Daniel Becker, head of the Safe Climate Campaign, which is part of the Center for Auto Safety consumer advocacy group in Washington.

The competition over electrics is picking up speed and players. Toyota, which has so far focused its efforts on hybrid models, will display a battery-powered concept car at the Detroit show. Nissan’s chief executive, Carlos Ghosn, has promised to sell an electric car in the United States and Japan as early as next year.

Two Japanese automakers, Mitsubishi and Fuji Heavy Industries, the parent company of Subaru, are also testing electric cars. And Chrysler, the most troubled of Detroit’s three auto companies, has vowed to produce its first electric car by 2010.

The surge toward electric vehicles also appears to be jump-starting investments in advanced-battery production in the United States. General Motors will announce plans at the auto show to build a factory in the United States to assemble advanced batteries for its Chevrolet Volt model, which it expects to start selling next year.

American auto executives have warned that without homegrown suppliers, the country could potentially become as dependent on Asian-made batteries as it is on oil from the Middle East and elsewhere.

“Automakers cannot afford the batteries until they are produced in a certain volume,” said Brett Smith, an industry analyst at the Center for Automotive Research in Ann Arbor, Mich. “But they can’t be produced in volume until companies make a big manufacturing investment.”

Strong consumer demand has to be part of that equation, too. And it remains unclear whether consumers will be comfortable with the idea of buying an electric car, or whether these vehicles will priced to compete with comparable gas-powered models.

Ford would not say what its electric car will cost. The Chevrolet Volt is expected to cost around $40,000.

“It’s the right time to take this step, but it would be presumptive to try and predict what the market is ultimately going to look like,” said Derrick M. Kuzak, Ford’s chief of global product development.

So far, consumers have proved to be fickle about how much they care about fuel economy. When gas prices soared above $4 a gallon last year, sales of the market-leading Prius hybrid surged so quickly that Toyota could not build them fast enough. But demand sagged when gas prices dropped below $2 a gallon.

Industry analysts also note that electric models could be a harder sell than hybrids, which have a gasoline engine to assist and recharge battery packs, freeing them from the need to be plugged in.

Most of the prospective electric models need to be charged for several hours to cover a day’s worth of driving. Ford estimates that its car will need at least a six-hour charge to travel 100 miles. The Volt can get 40 miles on battery power alone, and it has a small gasoline engine that drives a generator to extend its range.

The company had been through rough patches before, recovering in the 1950’s from the neglect of its founder’s later years, and fighting in the 1970s and early ’80s to fend off waves of Japanese imports.

The 1990’s were, at first glance, a good time for Ford, as its Taurus was the dominant passenger car of the decade’s early years and sales of its high-margin sport-utility vehicles, minivans and trucks rose and rose. In 1999, the first year under its new chairman, William Clay Ford Jr., and new chief executive Jacques A. Nasser, Ford earned a profit of $7.2 billion. That same year, Ford bought Volvo, adding it to a stable of European brands that included Aston Martin and Jaguar. In 2000, it bought Land Rover and formed the Premier Automotive Group, which it hoped could expand its profits and worldwide sales.

The Troubles Begin

That same year Ford was hit by exploding Firestone tires on its Ford Explorer, which had been the most popular sport utility in the country. For more than a year, Ford traded angry accusations with Firestone over who was at fault for the problem. The situation helped oust Mr. Nasser, who had angered Ford employees with aggressive steps he argued were needed to change the company, and it began a downturn from which Ford has yet to recover.

In 2006 Toyota passed Ford in United States sales. Lower sales and declining margins combined with rising spending on health care and retirees drove all American carmakers into a corner, but perhaps Ford most of all. It reported losing a staggering $12.6 billion. At the start of the year, Ford had announced a restructuring plan involving shedding 30,000 hourly jobs and 14,000 salaried workers, about one-third of its labor force; later that year it raised $23 billion by putting many of its most cherished North American assets up as collateral, including the Ford logo.

In July 2007 it announced that it had earned a profit of $750 million in the second quarter, its first quarterly profit in more than two years. Still, its new chief executive, Alan R. Mulally, brought in from Boeing in late 2006, warned of “substantial losses” looming for the year’s second half, and confirmed that the company was negotiating with possible buyers of Jaguar and Land Rover and was considering selling Volvo as well.

The Losses Mount

In October 2008, a dire new forecast for global vehicle sales battered the shares of auto companies. On Jan. 29, 2009, Ford announced that it lost $14.6 billion in the previous year, making 2008 its worst year in history as a result of the biggest sales slump in decades. Ford maintained that it had enough funds for its business plan and product investments. It finished 2008 with $24 billion in cash on hand but $25.8 billion in debt.

Ford, which is the only American automaker not being propped up by billions of dollars in government loans, said it did not need federal aid unless the economy worsened significantly or a competitor filed for bankruptcy protection. It expects to break even or earn a profit, excluding one-time charges, by 2011.

Working With the Union

The Ford Motor Company can substitute its stock for as much as half of its payments into a retiree health care trust under a deal announced Feb. 23, 2009, by the automaker and the United Automobile Workers union.

The agreement could form the basis for similar deals with General Motors and Chrysler, which need to cut costs and demonstrate that they can survive under the terms of their loans from the federal government.

“The modifications will protect jobs for U.A.W. members by ensuring the long-term viability of the company,” the union’s president, Ron Gettelfinger, said in a statement.

On March 9, the U.A.W. announced that its members at Ford had approved the agreement.The changes also require court approval.

On March 3, 2009, Ford said that its February sales were 48 percent lower than in February 2008. The company also said it would reduce second-quarter production by 38 percent from the same period in 2008.

Revamping Its Balance Sheet

On March 4, Ford said that it hoped to eliminate as much as $10.4 billion in debt by giving cash and stock to debt holders as part of a revamping of its balance sheet.

The moves Ford announced were similar to what General Motors and Chrysler were required to do under their multibillion-dollar loans from the federal government. As a result, Ford would reduce its overall borrowing by 40 percent.

In a reflection of the financial stress on the auto industry, Ford is offering its bondholders far less than the debt was originally worth. But under the terms it is proposing, holders of its debt would still fare better than they would if they sold their debt for its current market value.

G.M. and Chrysler bondholders have been forced to take such losses, but until now Ford bondholders have resisted similar actions. Ford, which has not taken any bailout money, has had more success initiating its restructuring than G.M. and Chrysler have achieved under government edict.

Analysts said that Ford’s debt initiatives, and the earlier agreement it secured with the United Automobile Workers union, reinforce its status as the healthiest of Detroit’s automakers. Ford said it would put up $2.2 billion in cash, including $1.8 billion from its lending arm, Ford Motor Credit, and 500 million shares of stock to persuade bondholders and other creditors to accept its restructuring offer.

Ford said that of its $25.8 billion in outstanding debt at the end of 2008, $20.7 billion is eligible to be restructured.

In a year that saw the national gasoline price average rise to $4 a gallon, then within a few short months plummet to $2, Exxon Mobil set a record for the most profitable American corporation on $45.2 billion in earnings. And this despite a fourth quarter that saw a 33-percent drop in profits, due in part to dropping oil prices.

Exxon Mobil wasn’t alone in raking in big numbers. Chevron, for instance, reported $24 billion in profits. By themselves, these figures are staggering, though Bloomberg.com put it in an interesting context when it wrote: “Exxon Mobil’s and Chevron’s combined revenue for 2008 exceeded the gross domestic products of all but 16 of the world’s nations.”

Another perspective would be to look at what these firms could buy. For instance, today’s market cap, or present value, for General Motors is about $1.8 billion and Ford Motor Company is $4.4 billion. Despite the significant decline in earnings, Exxon Mobil cleared $7.8 billion in the last quarter—more than enough to purchase both industrial giants and still have money left over to aid in restructuring. Repeat: In just one quarter.

Carrying this theme, Wall Street rewarded itself with a reported $18.4 billion in bonuses for 2008. Quite literally, a Manhattan office pool could buy a troubled automaker these days. In fact, you might even get a division for free. But I digress.

All this has me thinking: What if an oil company bought an automaker? What would it do, and what kinds of vehicles would it produce? What if Wall Street did? I have my thoughts, but would be interested in reading yours in the comments below, or in the forums.

These cut backs come on the heels of discussions with the United Auto Workers (UAW) to reduce labor costs. Automotive News announced that the company and the UAW agreed on changes to the union’s health care trust for retirees.

Bill Ford has been working for his namesake company since 2005 without an annual salary, according to Automotive News. Upon the board’s insistence, pay resumed for 2008, though Bill deferred it until the company returned to profitability.

Consequently, this move will hurt Mulally more in the short run, though I suspect he will be just fine. After all, Forbes lists his total annual compensation at $12 million, including a base $2 million salary and a $7 million bonus.

Plus, he reportedly earned $28 million in his first four months on the job at Ford in 2006, according to CNN Money. The report claims the prior eight months earned him $7.4 million from Boeing. Not bad for a year’s pay.

After facing Congress, Chrysler CEO Robert Nardelli and GM Chief Executive G. Richard Wagoner both announced they would work for just $1 a year. While Mulally’s sacrifices don’t seem to be as great, especially compared with the plight of many Americans, he has managed to keep Ford Motor Company from requiring federal assistance. And clearly, that is worth something.

Meanwhile, we like the idea of the Transit Connect as a more efficient choice for small business owners and contractors than full-sized vans. The four-cylinder Transit Connect is somewhat smaller inside, but it is almost 50 percent more efficient. For comparison purposes, the EPA rates full-sized Ford E-Series at 13/17 mpg city/highway. The Chevrolet and GMC vans are rated at 14/18, city/highway with a V8 engine, and 15/20 with a V6.

Looking at pickups, the full-sized Toyota Tundra V6 pickup is rated at 15/19 mpg, and even the relatively-efficient Honda Ridgeline is rated at 15/20. Only four-cylinder-powered small pickups like the Ford Ranger can match the Transit Connect’s mileage. And any pickup has much less enclosed cargo space.

But don’t think that Transit Connects will be running around getting 22 to 25 mpg. The EPA tests the truck as if only a driver is aboard. If Transit Connects sell to the commercial buyers that Ford expects, most of them will be driving around with up to 1,600 pounds of cargo. With a relatively small 136-horsepower, 2.0-liter four-cylinder engine, the weight will definitely hurt their mileage.

Chevrolet Traverse/GMC Acadia/Saturn Outlook
(no reliability data for Traverse, reliability too low to recommend for others) Minivan

Here are the details on each category:

Small car: The return of optional ESC, back after a six-year hiatus, allows the Focus to qualify for best small car. It outscores the competition from GM and Chrysler. But there still is a pretty big gap in score between the automatic-transmission SES we tested (score = 65) and the Hyundai Elantra SE (82) that tops this class. Hopefully the Chevy Cruze and upcoming “global” Fords will help regain competitiveness here.

Family sedan: The Malibu has been quite reliable in its first year. Both the four-cylinder and V6 versions we tested compete well with the top family sedans out there, but they do give up about six-to-nine points in overall score compared to the best-in-class cars. We’re interested to see how the updated 2010 Ford Fusion/Mercury Milan does in our tests; they have been extremely reliable.

Upscale and luxury sedans: It’s too bad that Cadillac has hit-and-miss reliability. The CTS and STS are both fun to drive sedans, but they haven’t been reliable. The old-fashioned DTS certainly isn’t as entertaining, but it’s very roomy and quiet.

Small SUV: With improved brakes and more power, the 2009 Ford Escape/Mercury Mariner now scores high enough to be recommended. Of the three we’ve recently tested, the hybrid scores the best. But the applause is tepid at best–with a score of 66, there is a big gap between it and the top-scoring small SUVs in this class, the Subaru Forester and Toyota RAV4.

Midsized SUV: Here is a category where the domestics score really well. Both GM’s modern three-row SUVs (the GMC Acadia, Saturn Outlook, Chevrolet Traverse score an 80 with their new direct-injection V6) and the Ford Flex (77) crowd the Toyota Highlander (81 for the nonhybrid) at the top of the ratings. Unfortunately, the GM vehicles haven’t been reliable, and we don’t have reliability data on the Flex yet.

Given those limitations, the pick here goes to the Taurus X. Built on the same platform as the Flex, the X has been reliable. Production is ending soon on this less-than-popular seller.

Minivans: Chrysler is the only domestic game in town. Ford and GM don’t build minivans anymore, but they’d gladly sell you a Flex or Acadia/Outlook/Traverse instead. We weren’t impressed with the redesigned Chrysler minivans in our tests, and their reliability has been subpar.

Pickup truck: With reliability that’s improved to average, the smooth-riding, innovative Avalanche replaces the Silverado as our Top Pick pickup.

Fun-to-drive: Although the Corvette scores extremely well (92 for the awesome Z06), reliability has been much below average. Going down the list, we don’t have reliability info on the updated Chevrolet Cobalt SS. Too bad–it’s a very entertaining car to drive. The Ford Mustang GT has been reliable enough, but stability control wasn’t available on the tested car. (It’s standard for 2010.) We haven’t tested the new Chevy Camaro or Dodge Challenger, nor do we have reliability data on them.

Green Car: With the Ford Escape/Mercury Mariner hybrid finally receiving ESC, they qualify to be a Top Pick. With 26 mpg overall, they get the best fuel economy of any SUV we’ve tested.

And that this year’s Top Picks, American style.

After all, we advocate buying the best product for your needs, regardless of who builds it or where it comes from. Plus, defining what is a “domestic” vehicle has gotten tricky with global production–is an American-designed-and-built Toyota Sienna more domestic than an Australian-built Pontiac G8? Regardless, especially given the recession, some buyers feel strongly that they should buy an American-branded vehicle.

That certainly doesn’t mean they’re doomed to buying a bad car. That perception exists: some have labeled this list the “losers list” in the past. That’s unfair, given that there are some excellent vehicles listed here. (However, some of the best vehicles built by Detroit don’t qualify because of reliability concerns.)

As a quick review, here are the guidelines for qualifying for a Top Pick:

* Scores high in the category
* Has readily available electronic stability control (ESC)
* Reliability data from CR’s annual survey that indicates average or better reliability.

Given those parameters, here are the domestic-branded Top Picks for 2009. For curiosity’s sake, I included the top-scoring domestic-branded vehicles in each category and noted why they didn’t qualify.

For perspective, the chart below includes current, comparable models, again with EPA numbers. Looked at together, we can see fuel efficiency increasing in these mainstream vehicle segments making it easier to save at the pump.

Essentially, all that Easy Fuel consists of is a spring backed metal plate behind the fuel filler hole. When you put the nozzle of a gas pump into the system, the plate pushes back. Upon removal of the pump, it will snap shut. This prevents loss of gasoline from an improperly installed or missing gas cap, making it safer and more gas efficient.  It makes filling up faster, as per there is no gas cap to unscrew. Add to that, no more scratches or scuffs from a hanging gas cap!

The Easy Fuel Capless Fuel Filler System is standard on many new Ford vehicles, including the Fusion, F-150, and Flex. If this isn’t really your style, then all models are available with the classic locking gas cap. 

In conclusion, the dedication in design of the Easy Fuel System speaks volumes of Ford, who took something as simple and basic as the gas tank and found a way to make it easier, faster, and cleaner.  From fueling up to the driveway, every aspect of Ford is unique, evolved, and different. Come take a look at this great new system today!

                                                            AdvanceTrac W/RSC

      We’ll start with AdvanceTrac with Roll Control System (RSC). In a nutshell, AdvanceTrace w/RSC makes it possible to avoid objects at high or higher speeds, keep control on loose or slippery surfaces, and adds to the overall peace of mind to the driver and occupants of a new Ford. The system is totally autmomatic, requiring no special operating procedures. For those of you who want to know what this all means, imagine yourself driving along a cliff at 30 miles an hour, and a rock falls in front of you, forcing you to swerve. After swerving, you the most dangerous part is getting back in your lane. Due to body lean and poor weight distribution, we tend to over steer at higher speeds, leading to overshooting the road or at the very least more swerving. But if we throw in AdvanceTrac with RSC, the car would detect the problem at the BEGINNING of the first swerve. After that, the vehicle will quickly and precisely adjust the brakes and engine output to maintain the best traction and contact with the road. No over steer, no extra swerving, and most importantly, everyone is safe.

AdvanceTrac with RSC combines two technologies: AdvanceTrac and Roll Stability Control. These systems enhance traction and maneuverability by monitoring wheel speeds, the Anti-lock Braking System (ABS), acceleration, steering input and the vehicle’s rotation for both the vertical yaw axis (a vehicle’s rotation about its vertical axis) and the horizontal roll axis (the amount of vehicle tip or lean). AdvanceTrac helps stabilize the vertical yaw axis to enhance control in adverse conditions such as ice, gravel or rain by selectively applying individual brakes and/or modifying engine power to help maintain vehicle control.

A vehicle roll motion sensor:
• Detects the roll angle of the vehicle on the horizontal axis
• Monitors vehicle body roll angle at least 100 times per second
• Automatically reacts to help the driver keep the vehicle upright and all four tires on the ground

These combined technologies provide drivers with more capability and confidence. The greatest benefit will be realized when driving on low traction surfaces, under fully loaded conditions, operating on uneven surfaces or while performing emergency maneuvers.

AdvanceTrac with RSC incorporates All-Speed Traction Control and employs the following systems and sensors to maximize vehicle control and stability.

Systems
• Anti-lock Braking System (ABS)
• All-Speed Traction Control
• Roll control system
• Yaw control system

Sensors
• Vehicle roll motion sensor
• Yaw rate sensor
• Lateral accelerometer
• Steering angle sensor
• Wheel speed sensors
• Master cylinder pressure sensor

When AdvanceTrac is active, the following may be noticed:
• Rumble sound much like ABS or traction control
• Slight deceleration or a reduction in the acceleration of the vehicle
• AdvanceTrac indicator light will flash
• When the brakes are applied, the driver will feel a vibration in the pedal much like ABS. As with any vehicle equipped with ABS, the brakes should not be pumped, but should be applied with firm steady braking pressure

One of the biggest cop-outs that has been thrown around recently is “The Big Three”: GMC, Chrysler, and Ford. But to compare Ford to the others is like comparing Ruth’s Chris to McDonalds. Technically we are in the same industry as the others, true. But simply put we are better prepared for the economic situation armed with a better product. Since the first Model T that rolled off the line in October 1908, Ford has continued to contribute to the world not only by their superior vehicles but also in business practices.

The Model T was called the “Universal Car” in allusion to the fact it was durable, low cost, and reliable, a true car for the people. Before this point cars were toys for the rich, more sporting vehicles for the well off then a commuter for the every man. Henry Ford was already an accomplished engineer and could have very well gone down the same route, but his plans were much bigger. Ford wanted to see everyone in his vehicles, so he sold them at a relatively low cost upon release, a mere $825, with the price dipping as low as $260. This was a prime example of Fords dedication to the American public, a tradition that continues as a valuable part of the company even today.

Another example of Fords dedication to the people was the revolutionary 5 dollar a day wage. This was the average wage paid to an automotive worker out of the Highland Park plant in Michigan, and was almost double the average wage paid to almost every other laborer across the US. This attracted many new employees, allowing Ford to run multiple shifts and therefore put out more vehicles at a cheaper price. This in turn stimulated the economy, raised the median wage, and encouraged growth within the company.

To this day Ford continues its pursuit of business and automotive breakthroughs. We are on the cutting edge of transportation sciences, making huge strides in environmentally friendly engines, more powerful sporting cars, and innovative ideas on all aspects of our vehicles. In fact, Ford recently announced it’s new EcoBoost engine, capable of delivering 20 percent more fuel economy without affecting horsepower. No other company has the EcoBoost technology.

So despite all the hatred spewed by the media, Ford is not going anywhere. For over 100 years Fords legacy of design innovation and low cost of ownership has kept the company flourishing, and there is no end to that in sight. We will continue to bring new ideas to the world and making ourselves better, one day at a time.

Drive a Ford, see what we’ve been doing.

The day after Ford and the UAW reached a tentative retiree health care deal (General Motors and Chrysler are still negotiating), the leaders of the Dearborn, Michigan, automaker have announced that they will be taking a 30 percent reduction in salaries over the next two years. A memo, signed by Ford Executive Chairman William Ford Jr. and Chief Executive Alan Mulally, addresses the pay cuts and adds that Ford’s board of directors will also drop their compensation for the same period of time. In addition, performance bonuses for salaried workers and senior executives will also disappear. As reiterated in the memo, Ford and Mulally are not wavering from their plan to go without government assistance and these recent announcements support that strategy. “We know these are challenging times and we all are affected by the tough actions we are taking… However, these are necessary actions to help us emerge as an even stronger, profitably growing Ford Motor Company for the benefit of us all.” Thanks for the tip Adam!

There’s more than one way for Hollywood actors to go green. While most celebrities choose to go the way of Toyota Prius ownership, Eric Bana’s chosen green ride is a 1973 Ford Falcon from Australia, a gas guzzler from a time that just barely predates most modern emissions equipment. That car, which is the title character in Bana’s upcoming new movie Love The Beast, was modified to take part in the grueling Targa Tasmania Rally, and we doubt the list of upgrades included bits like catalytic converters and computer-controlled engine management systems. Other stars slated to appear in the new flick include certified motor-heads Jay Leno, Jeremy Clarkson and… um, Dr. Phil. So, what’s the green angle?

Bana’s production company, known as Pick Up Truck Pictures, contracted an outside firm to calculate the total carbon emissions spent in the production of the film. To offset this carbon footprint, oxygen-exhaling trees will be planted to suck up their share of carbon dioxide and restore forest ecosystems. Ta-da!

Fuel cost savings are the expected benefit of commercial hybrid trucks. Other considerations include reduced emissions, minimal payload reduction from additional hybrid components, and help in complying with anti-idling regulations.

In addition, corporate mandates increasingly require fleets to be environmentally friendly. Corporate environmental policies place demands on fleet managers to find “green” fleet alternatives to implement in vehicle selectors. The underlying consideration, however, is that environmental programs must support a profitable business case.

Companies such as GE recognize that being environmentally responsible is a good business practice. At the heart of its ecomagination program is GE’s belief that an environmentally driven business strategy can benefit society. At its inception, GE set real, concrete goals to make ecomagination viable from a business standpoint. GE is proving it is possible to be both economically oriented and environmentally sound.

Giving Fleets What They Want

Truck manufacturers have been listening to fleet operators and responding by increasing production of medium-and heavy-duty hybrids. The convergence of commercial truck fleets’ demand for hybrids/alternative-fuel vehicles with the willingness of truck manufacturers to produce hybrid vehicles seem to be in place. UPS recently announced a major increase in its investment in alternative fuels, ordering 200 diesel-electric hybrid vans and 300 CNG vans.

Foton America, a Chinese company, recently introduced inexpensive compressed natural gas (CNG) buses in the United States. International Truck and Engine is starting production of its 4×4 WorkStar on a hybrid platform. Currently, medium-duty applications up to 33,000 lbs. GVWR offer the most hybrid opportunities for fleets. These include city pickup and delivery, package delivery, beverage, municipal, refuse, and utility applications. However, Sterling Trucks has announced a production rollout of 700 Class 8 hybrid tractors for this year.

While capital costs may increase up to $50,000 for hybrid vehicles, annual fuel savings and maintenance costs may be reduced up to $6,000 annually. In addition, tax credits and grants from federal and state agencies can reduce the initial costs significantly.

Hybrids in the Limelight

Hybrid (diesel-electric) truck development has accelerated over the past seven years, beginning with a collaborative effort of component manufacturers, fleet operators, and the Freightliner Corp.

Freightliner’s hybrid offering features a parallel diesel-electric system that enables the vehicle to operate the diesel engine alone or in combination with the electric motor.

In 2001, 18 hybrid trucks were delivered, and the model of using hybrids in city pickup and delivery operations took shape. The development of Eaton’s regenerative braking technology has promoted the commercial acceptance of hybrid trucks for nearly all types of fleets.

The use of hybrids can provide fuel savings up to 40 percent and reduce maintenance costs by increasing preventive maintenance intervals. Vocational applications benefit from the elimination of engine idling during the operation of upfitted equipment.

The use of electronic power take-offs (ePTO) combined with energy from the storage batteries produce quiet crane, man lift, and digger operation. Some hybrids are capable of exporting electricity to other equipment off-board from the truck itself.

Plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEV) are similar to automobile hybrids, charging batteries overnight from conventional electrical outlets to store energy to operate the vehicle and upfitted equipment.

The diagram illustrates a typical hybrid propulsion component that propels a hybrid truck. These features differentiate a hybrid truck from a conventially powered truck.

Ford Halloween

Technology can detect things like icy roads and precipitation, so many in the transportation sector see a future of cars calling authorities with updates on road conditions. These networks could then mobilize snowplows, road repair crews and law enforcement in terms of locating accidents immediately after they happen when they cause a traffic slowdown.

It all sounds promising, but we wonder how many people want their smart cars talking to the police when they’re topping the speed limit.

Motorists are three times more likely to run into a deer in November than in any other month, according to research compiled over the past five years by the Highway Loss Data Institute.

Last year, those run-ins killed 223 people, not just the deer.

“Urban sprawl means suburbia and deer habitat now intersect,” said Kim Hazelbaker, a senior vice president of HLDI, which is an arm of the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety.

More important is the fact that November begins breeding season. After waiting 12 months to mate, deer have does and bucks on their minds, not Impalas and Mustangs.

But don’t put all the blame on Bambi.

HLDI figures show that in fatal accidents caused by striking deer, 60% of the victims were not wearing seat belts, and 65% of those on motorcycles were not wearing helmets.

HLDI says the worst times for potential collisions are night, dusk and dawn, and on roads posted with 55 mph speed limits.

“The caution flag is out,” Hazelbaker said.

The states to be most watchful in are Texas, with 17 deaths from deer run-ins last year, Wisconsin (15), Michigan (11), Iowa (11) and Ohio (10).

We first told you about Ford’s new Mustang Cobra Jet factory drag car in June of 2007 and last week Ford posted a video on YouTube of a test session with the new car showing its stuff at Milan DragWay. Now we’ve received some fresh high-res pics of the Cobra Jet in our inbox from Ford. Last we heard Ford is only building 50 of these drag race specials all of which are powered by a blown 5.4-liter 32-valve V8 based on the GT500 motor. This engine has been breathed on a little more heavily then the GT500 and the car looks like it’s been stripped down. With the usual drag combo of skinny front and fat rear tires, this Cobra looks like it might be a contender.

Ford of Europe currently builds the C-Max, the three-, four-, and five-door Focus and the Kuga off the C-platform, meaning any one of those variants could one day wear a Mercury waterfall grille. While it would essentially still be a rebadged Ford, this new Merc will be a slightly reworked version of a vehicle that won’t otherwise be sold stateside, so it will be new to us. That sounds a lot better than the Mercurys we have today.

Ford wasn’t the only automaker to make its way onto the breakthrough award list, either. GM, BMW, and DaimlerChrysler’s joint Two-Mode Hybrid project was also recognized for its ability to save fuel on the gas guzzlers that need it most.

Pierre Ford is listening to the latest news from Ford Motor Co., as it rolls up a record, $8.7 billion loss and its plummeting market share, it’s hard to imagine a time when the very name “Ford” was as synonymous with cars as the word “automobile.”

The reason was simple: the Model T. Otherwise known as the Tin Lizzie, it is the car that put America on wheels. It wasn’t pretty, nor was it fast or particularly comfortable. But it was inexpensive and relatively easy to operate. And it sold by the millions, especially after the company’s eponymous founder, Henry Ford I, came up with the concept of the moving assembly line.

Born on a farm in the Detroit suburb of Dearborn, Ford was an inveterate tinkerer, racer, and entrepreneur. It took him three tries to launch a successful company, and even that third attempt might not have made it had he not come up with the Model T, which went on sale exactly 100 years ago.

Production began at a small factory, on Piquette Road in Detroit, and contrary to conventional wisdom, those early flivvers were built pretty much like every other car of the day, one at a time, bits of pieces of body, chassis, and engine sprawled across the brick Piquette Plant’s wooden floor. Even then, demand grew so rapidly, Ford moved production to an all-new building, designed by the legendary architect Albert Kahn in 1910.

It was one of the biggest factories of its day and featured a variety of breakthroughs, including a roof designed to flood the plant with natural light. But the real breakthrough came soon afterward, when one of his employees, William “Pa” Klann, came back from visiting Chicago’s stockyards. There, animal carcasses were rolled from one station to another, each worker assigned to slice off a particular cut of meat.

Initially skeptical, Ford gave his nod and the factory bosses tied ropes connecting a line of partially assembled bodies, pulling them through the plant, where workers would bolt on one piece at a time, until they had a fully assembled Model T.

By 1914, they had the process down so precisely that a new flivver rolled out of the Highland Park plant about every 60 seconds, the assembly process taking just 93 minutes per Model T. In fact, Ford was assembling the Tin Lizzies so fast that by the end of the decade, it produced 9 of every 10 cars sold worldwide. And it didn’t even need to advertise between 1917 and 1923.

The Model T set a whole chain of events in motion. Even as the car made it possible for much of America to afford wheels, it helped create a new middle class. In the early days of the auto industry, employees were worked so hard and paid so poorly, that turnover in the plants often ran to 300 percent or more annually.

Historians still argue over why Ford approved the $5-a-day wage. Was it to create a market for his new cars, or to reduce turnover? Probably both, as it helped stabilize the workforce while also boosting sales. Ford was also a proponent of good roads – which would help workers move out of the tenements of the cities, often beyond the reach of the day’s streetcars.

While even the cheapest cars cost north of $2,000 when the first Model T appeared, Ford brought the first flivver into the showroom at $850, and as he perfected his mass production techniques, he continually cut the price, to $500, $450, and in its final years, to just $300 – about what a typical Highland Park Plant worker could earn in four months.

While Ford may today have a reputation as an innovator, he could be incredibly cantankerous and stubborn. Early on, he offered an array of color choices, but in 1913, he went to black alone. Why is another point of debate. It dried faster than the other primitive paints of the day – which could sit in warehouses for days, creating the potential for scratches, scuffs, and contamination. But the tight-fisted Ford may have simply been trying to save a few bucks. “Actually, he just wanted an economical and durable color that could be applied easily,” his great-grandson, Edsel B. Ford II, told the Detroit Free Press.

Ford’s obdurate nature began to hurt the company, in the 1920s, as competitors began to figure out how to challenge the Model T’s stranglehold on the market. Among the most effective competitors was General Motors and its new CEO, Alfred P. Sloan. He famously boasted that GM would build “a car for every purse and pocketbook,” and in just about any color that the public wanted, one could add.

Sloan also introduced the concept of styling at GM, a sharp contrast to the function-is-form philosophy of the Model T. And by the mid-1920s, that broke Ford’s stranglehold. With his son, Edsel I, pleading for change, Henry finally approved the new Model A, shutting down Highland Park on May 26, 1927, for a lengthy changeover.

The new car helped regain some of Ford’s faltering momentum, but the company’s dominance was broken. GM became the new king of the hill, a position it held until this year, when the Japanese giant, Toyota, was able to grab global sales leadership for the first half of the year.

My local “drug” dealer, also known as Sonny’s Sunoco, as regular readers may recall, likes to play roulette with prices. It’s not unusual for me to see the numbers on his display board switch three or four times a day, apparently depending upon how his personal trading is going on the spot market.

So I was surprised to see the figures hold steady, this weekend, at $3.79 a gallon of regular, more than 40 cents below the peak price he was demanding of us petrol junkies just a month before. All across the country, the AAA reports, prices are falling, and are now averaging barely $4 a gallon.

(Of course, who would have thought we’d breathe a collective sigh of relief when fuel prices were “only” $4?)

Why the sudden dip? No, it’s not because the Saudis are suddenly feeling guilty, nor is it the result of a sudden sense of social responsibility in the ExxonMobil boardroom. It’s apparently nothing more than a sign that Adam Smith was right. The invisible hand of the market seems to be working.

As fuel prices soared, in recent months, Americans began cutting back on their driving, whether by carpooling, cutting out unnecessary trips, switching to more fuel-efficient vehicles, or canceling their cross-country vacations. Whatever the reason, the nation sucked down 2.4 percent less fuel during the previous four weeks than it did during the same period in 2007. And that’s helped drive down the price of crude by more than $20 a barrel since its July 3 peak of $145.31 – to a Friday close of $123.26.

Of course, that seemingly direct link between fuel consumption and fuel prices could work against us, if motorists wind up driving more now that fuel is, ahem, affordable again. Relatively, anyway. What was $72, on average, in 2007, is still expected to be $127 a barrel in 2008, and $133 next year, according to the energy Information Administration.

But unlike years past, when the laws of supply and demand were pretty much directly impacted by what happens on U.S. shores, the situation has changed dramatically in recent years, as more and more of the emerging world discovers the automobile.

China has become the world’s third-largest motor vehicle market, behind only Japan and the U.S., and with millions more cars and trucks taking to the road each year, its appetite for petroleum has soared. The same thing is happening in India, Russia, and, well, much of the world. But while usage is soaring, supply has held relatively steady.

The situation is compounded, warns an article in today’s New York Times, by the fact that consumers in many of these emerging markets aren’t actually feeling the real pain of petroleum’s record run-up. Indonesia, for example, is spending 4 percent of its entire economic output in the form of fuel subsidies, helping maintain gasoline prices of around $2.30 a gallon. In Malaysia, the subsidies amount to 7.5 percent of economic output.

China is spending about $40 billion to subsidize fuel costs, though it did allow gasoline prices to rise significantly on June 21. As the Times notes, that immediately drove down world oil prices by a whopping $4 a barrel. There’s the possibility of still further increases in Chinese gasoline prices after the upcoming Olympics. Observers expect the government to wait rather than risk protests that could be picked up by the world’s media, descending on Beijing.

While subsidies might ease the burden on third-world consumers, the problem is that low prices do the same thing, in places like China and India, that cheap gas did in America, it encourages consumption and limits the viability of conservation. And with little growth in global petroleum supplies, the fast-rising demand from these markets will continue to push up the cost of crude, even if Americans maintain their newfound focus on fuel efficiency.

Microsoft hopes to SYNC up with the auto industry. The software giant’s high-tech infotainment system has been one of the few big success stories for Ford Motor Co. this past year, drawing in the sort of high-tech-savvy buyers who might normally steer over to an import brand.

Now with Ford about to lose its brief exclusive on the SYNC system, Microsoft is ready to make a major push into the auto industry, the Detroit News reports. The Washington-based software company “will announce a massive new investment in its automotive business unit,” the paper reports. And it has tapped Detroit native and Microsoft veteran Tom Phillips to head the operation.

“We know that things are tough for the auto industry, but it’s the perfect time to make this investment,” said Phillips. “There are new customers coming into the market and they are looking for new experiences.”

There’s been a general trend toward increasing the level of electronics in the average car. High-line manufacturers, such as BMW, with its complex iDrive system, can have more than $10,000 in silicon-controlled systems, ranging from engine, chassis, and safety controls to navigation and in-car entertainment. Even low-end vehicles are being offered with high-tech hardware.

Part of the challenge is to come up with technology that not only offers a wide array of features, but that is also easy to use. BMW has been repeatedly faulted for the complexity of iDrive, and plans a complete remake of the system shortly. Microsoft, however, has won kudos for SYNC, which offers the driver a variety of ways to issue a command, including one of the best voice control systems on the market. Ford recently launched a second-generation SYNC system that adds such features as traffic and weather, along with the ability to track restaurants, movie schedules, and gas prices.

Using SYNC as a come-on in its entry-level sedan, Ford has reportedly driven up the average transaction price on its Focus by $1,000 over the past year. As it expands availability, he automaker expects to sell about 1 million vehicles equipped with SYNC by the end of 2009.

But as with much of the technology provided by outside suppliers, manufacturers like Ford are generally granted limited exclusivity. And Microsoft is already beginning to license the SYNC system to other manufacturers, including the Korean upstart Hyundai, which expects to bring its own version to market within the next several years.

While Detroit’s Big Three automakers may be struggling for their very survival, the domestic manufacturers aren’t the only ones suffering from the current car market downturn.

The sharp slump in light truck sales have slammed hard two of the Japanese Big Three, including Toyota, which has already announced sharp cuts in pickup production, and Nissan, which is scaling back production of both pickups, like the big Titan, and its various SUVs.

And now, Nissan reveals, it is offering buyouts to 6,000 of the workers at its two Tennessee assembly plants. That comes as a shock in a state that has seen its automotive workforce rise rapidly, in recent years.

Some of those standing to be offered a buyout option could get packages consisting of up to $125,000 in cash, along with benefits like discount car purchases.

The move follows recent steps to bring capacity more in line with diminished demand. Among other things, Nissan will eliminate a night shift at one of the truck lines. But the automaker, like its Japanese rivals, has pointedly stressed that it doesn’t plan any layoffs. Other than those who accept buyouts, the company plans to find alternative work for any excess employees.

Ironically, the tough news comes just a week after Nissan dedicated its all-new U.S. headquarters, located in a suburb of Nashville. It moved to Tennessee, two years ago, ostensibly to reduce costs and put its American corporate offices closer to its primary production center.

Probably nothing is more symbolic of America’s love affair with the automobile than the classic eight-banger. It’s the engine of choice for muscle car knuckle-draggers, luxury car aficionados, and truck haulers alike. And until recently, V-8s were stuffed under the hood of nearly a third of the vehicles sold in the U.S. market.

Industry observers have long wondered what it would take to get American motorists to change their buying habits. The market barely nudged when gas hit $2.50, and there were only marginal changes at $3. But as Ford marketing czar Jim Farley observers, there’s been a sea change since the pump price topped $4.

Light truck sales, as we all know, have collapsed. But even in the luxury market, normally immune from recession and rising oil prices, buyers are rethinking their options. “V-8 output is expected to plunge 45 percent…by 2009,” notes a new report from PriceWaterhouse-Coopers. In fact, ask authors, are we looking at the “death of the V-8?”

You might recall that General Motors recently scrubbed plans to replace the big Northstar V-8, the fast-beating heart of its Cadillac lineup. On the other hand, it’s also developed the massive, new LS9, for the coming Corvette supercar, and a variation of the LS line will power the next-generation Caddy CTSv. But GM product chief Bob Lutz frets that with the new emissions and mileage standards the industry is facing, there may be little room for 8 cylinders much longer.

Of course, there are those who see that as good news – and not just “tree-huggers,” many of whom would like to see the automobile vanish entirely. Notes the PWC report, “I4 engines will soon be able to perform at levels similar to current V6s, while future V6 engines will perform at levels comparable to V8s, while also achieving better fuel economy than their predecessors. This transition will allow smaller engines to compete in segments that were previously dominated by V8s.” The Ford Ecoboost engines, which will be used in models like the Flex and the upcoming Lincoln MKS, are good examples.

That’s not to say we shouldn’t lament the loss of a brutish powertrain that has thrilled drivers and passengers alike for much of the last century. And, of course, like Mark Twain, we should be wary of anything that prematurely reports the death of the V-8. It was labeled a “dinosaur,” during the fuel crises of the ’70s, and was expected to be gone by the end of the millennium, yet in 2004, Americans bought 4.7 million V-8s. And even by 2009, the PWC study shows likely demand remaining at 2.7 million.

The V-8, the report concludes, “will continue to play a role in the North American market, albeit in an increasingly limited capacity within more specialized segments. As new CAFE milestones are implemented through 2020, V8s are likely to become a more niche offering.”

Wrapping up the second quarter, General Motors announced a whopping $15.5 billion loss, the third-worst in its history, and nearly double the record loss reported by Ford Motor Co. barely a week before. Chrysler did announce it had found a way to set aside $1.1 billion during the first half of 2008, but that’s about the only thing good the automotive arm of Cerberus Capital Management seems to have to talk about these days.

And to make sure prospects don’t look any better for the months to come, industry sales numbers showed that the market is, if anything, getting worse, with automakers large and small collectively reporting what would, on an annualized basis, come in at barely 13 million cars, trucks, and crossovers. That’s down from an industry peak earlier in the decade of more than 17 million.

Chrysler, in fact, posted the worst downturn of any of the major makers, a 28.8 percent decline for July, with GM close behind, at a 26.1 downturn. Ford was off 14.7 percent, but there was something positive to note there, with the ailing makers passenger car sales actually rising by 1.9 percent. The big downturn – no surprise – across the industry is on the light truck side, where even Toyota reported a 27.1 percent drop, compared to year-earlier sales of vehicles like the Tundra pickup and Land Cruiser SUV.

But even Honda, which has seemingly defied gravity in recent months, proved that Newton was right. The Japanese maker reported an overall 1.6 percent decline.

The one positive surprise? Nissan delivering an overall 8.5 percent increase in July sales, despite its continuing decline on the light truck side. High-mileage small cars, such as the Versa, have helped the Japanese marque gain traction.

And that’s what analysts are hoping can put a bit of momentum back into the industry, as makers race to expand production of products like Versa, Honda’s Fit, and Toyota’s Yaris. But even though domestic manufacturers are shutting truck plants as quickly as possible and converting many to handle small passenger cars, the changeover won’t be easy – or quick. The first American version of Ford’s new Fiesta, for example, won’t roll out a former F-Series plant in Mexico until the 2010 model year.

A slight reprieve in fuel prices could help August’s numbers, some analysts believe. But few expect a resurgence in the truck market. And the overall slump in the U.S. economy, with surveys showing consumers expecting even worse, isn’t going to help the auto industry.

Indeed, the lending crisis is actually worsening things for the auto industry. Automotive finance subsidiaries and traditional lenders alike are tightening credit and, in many cases, curbing or eliminating entirely the leasing programs that, in recent years, helped get millions of motorists out of used vehicles and into new ones.

“I’m really worried about keeping my doors open,” one Detroit-area Lincoln Mercury dealer told me last week. About 80 percent of his business is leasing, noted the retailer, who asked not to be named. And if he can’t offer those low-cost deals anymore, he doesn’t expect to convert many of his struggling blue-collar customers to a traditional sale.

The leasing cutback could be felt across the industry. For most luxury marques, leasing accounts for 70-plus percent of their business. Yes, makers like Lexus and Mercedes-Benz have more affluent customers, but many of those are also stretching their budgets to stay in the luxury market. If makers are forced to retune leases to reflect financial realities, some products could see huge price jumps. And that could lead many potential customers – especially those coming back for new leases – to walk away.

There’s clearly light at the end of the tunnel. But right now, nobody’s quite sure when they’re going to get near enough to the end of this downturn to see it.

Most of the updates given to the Ford Escape are purely cosmetic, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing. On the outside, Edmunds.com raves about the “bolder grill, taller beltline, higher hood and Edge-inspired headlights.” In general, reviews read by TheCarConnection.com found the more progressive lines of the Escape SUV to be a welcome evolution in the seven-year-old design. Cars.com notes that the compact SUV mimics the stylings of its bigger brother, the Ford Explorer, and is less cutesy and more rugged.

The interior of the 2008 Ford Escape has also been redesigned. Automobile.com raved about the posh leather of the Escape; Ford’s new interior is “sporty and suited to a more expensive car.” Other reviews were mixed on the styling of the retooled dashboard. ConsumerGuide cries foul on the “cheap looking, hard plastic panels.” Cars.com is more forgiving, finding the dash appealing, but still conceding that the materials aren’t on par with similar 2008 compact SUVS like the Saturn Vue. Ergonomically speaking, however, all gauges can be seen in a quick glance.

Speaking of materials in the Ford Escape, 2008 is the year this crossover becomes the first car to use 100 percent post-industrial plastic waste in the upholstery (standard fabric seating only). Reviewers felt the added recycling effort is a nice tip of the hat to old Mother Earth, and doesn’t negatively affect the interior styling in the slightest.

Conclusion: Most reviewers—including the editors of PierreFordBlogs.com —give a thumbs-up for the bolder, more rugged look of the exterior of the 2008 Ford Escape.

More 2009 Ford Edge Photos

Arrange a test drive, get free price quotes, or read local dealer ratings for 2009 Ford Edge:

By Paul Eisenstein Paul Eisenstein, Executive Editor

Ford is giving a sharper Edge to its popular new crossover vehicle, as the Windy City sees the fourth version of the new Edge CUV blow in for the annual show on the lake.

The Ford Edge Sport will become the first crossover ever offered with an optional 22-inch wheel-and-tire combination — 20-inchers remain standard. The aggressive look is further enhanced by low-profile, 40-series Pirelli Scorpion Zero rubber.

While that might complete some custom option packages, it’s just the starting point for Edge Sport, which follows up with an eight-piece body kit that includes a unique front air dam — with integrated fog lamps — side skirts, lower door caps and a rear skirt, all in body color. The exterior look is completed with “Founder Gray” smoked head- and taillamp lenses, special Sport badges, and chromed dual exhaust tips.

For the Chicago Auto Show, the first-off Edge Sport is shown in Sport Blue, though three other special paints will be available during the 2009 model-year.

Inside, the Sport edition features dark gray leather seats with suede-feel inserts. Contrasting light gray stitching is designed to give the cabin an upscale feel.

The interior package is completed by the edged-metal look of the Sport’s instrument panel.

“The new Ford Edge Sport is designed to instantly appeal to crossover customers who want a sportier custom look and feel,” said John Felice, general manager, Ford Division. “This specialty design reflects the growing popularity of personalization and more customers’ interest in industry shows like the annual Hot Import Nights around the country and the Specialty Equipment Market Association Show inLas Vegas.”

Like the rest of the edge line-up, the Sport edition will be offered with a variety of other options, including the huge Vista roof and the SYNC infotainment system, developed in a joint venture between Ford and Microsoft.

Notably the powertrain package on the Sport remains the same as the other versions of Edge. For those who’d like a little more, hang tight, hints Ford’s global product development czar, Derrick Kuzak, who tells TheCarConnection.com, “You’ll see (something different) in the future.”

How far ahead, he’s not saying, but the 2009 Ford Edge Sport reaches dealers in autumn.

That’s likely to change, in the years to come, as Ford globalizes its line-up. The Verve small car concept, first shown in Detroit , last month, is one example. And the Transit Connect van, debuting at the 2008 Chicago Auto Show, is another.

“This workhorse is like nothing available today in the American market,” said Derrick Kuzak, Ford group vice president of Global Product Development. That’s not just PR spin.

The smaller of two versions of the van sold in Europe, Transit Connect is specifically designed for tight, urban environments, where space is at a premium and fuel prices are high. These days, that’s beginning to look a lot more like the U.S., Ford is betting, as it readies to launch the functional little van here in the summer of 2009.

At 6’8” tall, the Transit Connect can fit into most urban parking structures, yet it has a surprising amount of cargo space inside a total of 143 cubic feet — which would make it perfect for wine or flower merchants, for example, or a caterer. (It can handle loads of up to 6.5 feet in length and 4.7 feet in width.) And the distinctive sides also provide a striking mobile billboa

Four different configurations are on display in Chicago , including a traveling equipment hauler for the well-known blues man, Eddie Shaw, and his band, the Wolf Gang. Another is a mobile delivery van for the popular Chicago wine shop, Schaefer’s.

With some experts predicting gas will hit $4 or more a gallon by the time Transit Connect crosses the ocean, fuel economy might be an even bigger selling point. The van is powered by a 2.0-liter gasoline engine, mated to a four-speed automatic transmission. (A U.S. version of one of Ford’s European diesels could follow, according to Kuzak.) The powertrain package is expected to deliver 19 mpg city, 24 highway. That’s about two better than the comparable cargo vans from Dodge and Chevrolet.

Sized somewhere between the new Ford Flex and the automaker’s bigger E-Series vans, Transit Connect is initially geared for commercial applications. But in Europe, noted Kuzak, it is often converted for personal use. The same thing might happen State-side, as well.

Initially, at least, Transit Connect will be imported from a Ford plant in Turkey , but longer term, if it gains a foothold, a North American production site could be in the cards.

It has been two weeks since the announcement that you were being named as the new Director of Ford Racing Technology. Has it sunk in yet?

It sunk in real quick. As soon as you get announced for a position like this, it begins to consume everything that is on your mind. My first thoughts were, ‘How fast can I get out of the old job and get that cleaned up for the new guy?’ The big challenge is starting to understand everything associated with the new job. It hit home pretty quick, and I am ready to go.

You were quoted as saying this position is a dream come true. Talk about the realization of a dream.

The realization of the dream will be a lot clearer in a few months. Right now, it is still a dream because I am thinking about the things I want to do and how we want to enhance the program. As those things come to a reality, that will be living the dream. This has been a dream because as long as I can remember I have been around racecars. To be able to have this position and have influence over where we are going and what we are doing with the aftermarket parts program, and what we are going to offer to sportsman racers as well as professionals is pretty exciting.

Henry Ford was a racer and racing is a foundation and legacy upon which the Ford Motor Company has been built. Talk about carrying on that legacy of Henry and the Company.

It is a long legacy to carry, with so many successes in so many areas of racing where Ford has been. Pretty much everywhere that Ford has gone and wanted to compete we have been able to dominate. That legacy of success is in our DNA and blood. My goal is anywhere we continue to go in the future, we want that same dominance. It is very clear from the guys I have talked to that are in Ford Racing, and that is their goal as well. I am looking forward to going back to some of the areas we have been and proving the dominance with our great products.

Ford Racing Technology has a broad range of programs in multiple disciplines. How have your previous positions within the company prepared you for the challenges of your new position?

Overseeing the multiple programs isn’t a concern. Learning a bit more about some of the programs is something I am looking forward to. The position that I came from I was involved with all forward model programs for the entire company globally from powertrain controls to calibration, emissions and part and attribute delivery. So coming to the racing program is actually a much smaller slice, but I plan to be able to go a lot deeper in my understanding and help.

How much previous interaction have you had with Ford Racing from your positions in powertrain and advanced engine groups?

In my official Ford capacity, it was limited pretty much to assisting with powertrain controls work, calibration work and assisting in the certification of some of the performance packs that we have. One of the things that Ford Racing offers are really complete performance packages that the consumer can install on their car. Those packages are 50-state legal, and they have to be robustly certified. I was involved in helping advise how to get those certifications accomplished.

What was your first racing experience/memory?

My first personal racing experience was just after I picked up my driver’s license. At age 16 on my birthday I picked up my license. I had bought my first car at age 15. It was a 428 Ford Cobra Jet Fairlane, which I still own. Hours after I picked up my license, I was racing.

Drag racing is near and dear to your heart. You have been an avid amateur racer since the age of 15 when you bought a 1969 Cobra Jet Fairlane?

I was the youngest of several children and being that you always look up to your Dad and your older brothers and being in the mid-60s, my brother had a 427 Fairlane and raced that in stock and super stock, that was the car I wanted. When I was getting my license in the mid-70s, I was looking for a ‘66 Fairlane, but I found this 428 Cobra Jet Fairlane for sale and I got it for $375. I still have it to this day. It only has 42,000 miles on it, and I keep it because I’ve always had it and I am attached to it. When I started at Ford after college, the second car I bought new was an ‘86 Mustang GT, which was the first year of the fuel-injected cars.

When I first started to work on that car was when I first got involved in motorsports. My involvement was more in the unofficial capacity. There was a guy named Hank Dertain who was working at Ford Racing, and a guy named Wally Beeber who was in the 5.0-liter (engine) group, and there was a set of hardware called the GT-40 parts that was going to be used as a production upgrade to the next motor. For some reason, that upgrade didn’t happen. Wally got a hold of Hank and said he had these parts and it is a shame not to use them. Hank took a look at them and made some enhancements and put them in the motorsports catalog. At that point, our lives crossed, and he said let me give you these things to put on your car to test and you can give us some feedback.

The first time I went out in that car with those parts on it with a few other suspension modifications, I had made it turned 12.40’s, which was faster than my 428 Cobra Jet had ever gone. I was thinking ‘wow, this is pretty cool,’ and it’s a lot easier to work on than my Cobra Jet. From there, that Mustang was the first fuel-injected 5.0-liter to run 11’s, 10’s and the 9’s in the quarter mile, naturally aspirated. I competed in Pro 5.0 with the car with nitrous and the car went 8.30’s before I kind of backed away from that program when I got an assignment in Europe. The Pro 5.0 stuff kept going, and I am really proud to see how fast those guys are going and what it has evolved to.

Dan Davis has been the Director of Ford Racing for the last 11 years, and during his tenure Ford has won multiple championships in multiple series.

When you look back over Dan’s tenure, which is the longest standing head of Ford motorsports, you see he was very dedicated and passionate about making it a success. Success from a motorsports perspective is not only about winning championships, which is of course a prerequisite, but it is also making sure that there are returns to the company from a marketing perspective, in selling new cars and in enhancing the company’s image.

Dan was able to accomplish a lot of those things. The safety work that has been done in NHRA Funny Car is nothing short of astounding. How proud are we to claim that Ford has the most Five Star crash rated cars on the road today, but also that we are the ones pioneering making funny cars and drag racing safer? A lot of people don’t know that as well as they should. They are big shoes to fill and hopefully I can springboard off the things Dan has done and enhance it further.

How about a few racing favorites? Favorite Racing Moment?

One of my favorite racing moments is a personal anecdote. I was racing at Maple Grove in 1994. A guy named “Stormin’ Norman” had one of the other Pro 5.0 cars and to be honest, at this period of time he always had the edge on me. I had the quicker car in the time trials, and rain clouds were coming, and we are racing an exhibition best two-out-of-three. We took off, and Dave Lyle was driving for Norman and at half-track I was three cars ahead of him!

Then as luck would have it, my inline fuel filter clogged a little bit, and the car leaned out and he passed me right at the end of the quarter mile. It may seem funny that one of my favorite moments is a race I lost, but just the thrill of being there combined with the agony of not having my maintenance program real sound was a valuable lesson. That is one that really sticks in my mind. The wins are all good and you pile those up and is one better than another? No. The losses are the ones you learn from. That one really taught me the importance of an accessible and proper maintenance program.

Favorite Track?

My favorite track is London [Ontario] Motorsport Park back when John Fletcher owned the track. I used to go up there every year and race in an event that Joe DiSilva, one of the big-time Mustang Pro 5.0 racers, would put on. At the time, I had one of the fastest cars, and I really didn’t want to compete because I didn’t want to ruin the competition for everyone else, but I really liked Joe and I liked the track owner so I would go up every year and do exhibition runs, and I would always run my fastest times of the year at that track and at that event.

Favorite Driver?

That is a tough one. I have to go with Bob Glidden. Drag racing has been my passion, and Bob with his multiple championships and his domination of the sport is something you have to respect. Plus, it was always great to see the Ford in the winner’s circle when he was running. A close second would be John Force. Pro Stock was something I could really relate to as a kid because Pro Stock grew out of Super Stock. John Force and Pro drivers were always above where I was and they were where I aspired to be as a racer, even though I knew I would never get in that position. John is such an ambassador to the sport, and he is truly a great guy. Every time I have seen him at an event or after an event at the local pub, you see how genuine and sincere he is with the fans and other competitors.

Favorite Ford production car? Favorite Ford race vehicle?

My favorite Ford production car is the Mustang. I have always loved the Mustang.

For me, my favorite Ford racecar it is the GT-40. With the 1-2-3 win and the domination four years in a row at LeMans.

How can you top that?

Unfortunately, many of the Ranger’s qualities are quite simply out of date. In an age where most trucks come with a ton of safety features, like stability control, hill and parking assist-the Ranger’s boasting of standard ABS hints at its serious deficiency in this department. Off-road capabilities are still note-worthy with the FX4 package. But overall ride quality suffers from the aging suspension which makes for a bumpier ride than most. The interior doesn’t have many modern frills, but it’s clean and straight-forward. If you need a truck for old-school (and we mean old) utility, these grievances may not matter. And admittedly, the price is hard to beat.

A couple of more modernized competitors worth looking into are the Toyota Tacoma and the steeper-priced Dodge Dakota which has more features and better performance.

Well, the organization that was founded in 1917 and which represents more than 19,700 domestic and international new car and truck dealers, claims there’ll be more than 100,000 jobs to fill at dealerships nationwide very soon.

In a recent NADA Press Release, kicking off “Automotive Career Month,” Chairman Annette Sykora says: “We are encouraging students to schedule a visit to their hometown dealership and ask about internships or summer jobs, which can often lead to a full-time career a few years down the road.”

But wait! Aren’t automotive sales down in this slumping economy? And isn’t the long-term outlook for new car sales just as gloomy, especially with Ford Motor Company recently making a highly controversial offer to buy back 81 dealerships? Get more details on Ford’s offer at MarketWatch.

Well, apparently NADA sees better times on the near horizon, which could translate to some great deals for car buyers, especially if, as they claim, there’ll be 100,000 jobs available at dealerships very soon. Think of it as 100,000 new dealership representatives fighting for your business.

To apply at Seattle’s largest Ford Dealership, click here.

According to experts, US drivers are most likely going to have to wait about 3 years for a car to be sold that gets 50 miles per gallon, even though such models already exist in Japan and Europe. While we have a penchant for bigger and more powerful cars in the US, the biggest problem seems to be the cost to develop them for a mass market here.

To reach 50 mpg, buyers may have to compromise on one of the 3 pretty essential areas: cost, quality of the ride or safety. At this time, high tech equipment to make the car either lighter or more fuel efficient can’t help impact the ride and vehicle in one of these key areas. Ford recently estimated what it would take to build the Ford Focus out of a lighter-weight aluminum frame. This would pop the mileage up to 50mpg from its current 35 mpg, but it would cost $50,000. Hmmm… Gotta admit, that’s a pretty expensive Focus.

SoundScreen Reduces Cabin Noise

During a road test measuring noise inside a 2008 Focus fitted with the SoundScreen windshield and sound-absorbent material, decibel levels were cut to 67 dB from 70 dB in the previous model (by comparison, 65 dB is the level that people typically speak at when seated around a conference table). With this reduction in road noise, drivers can easily talk to the passenger next to them or on the phone and they won’t have to turn up the stereo all the way.

With the new windshield and other sound-absorbing materials, the 2008 Mercury Mariner is 12 percent quieter on the highway and 20 percent quieter in high-velocity crosswinds than the 2007 model.

Developed by Carlite, the SoundScreen windshield debuted on the 2007 Ford Expedition and the Lincoln MKX and Navigator, and is also standard on the new 2008 Ford Escape and Focus, as well as the new 2008 Mercury Mariner.

A Quieter Windshield

The secret to the SoundScreen windshield is that it is built with a layer of sound-absorbent vinyl sandwiched between two sheets of glass.

This special acoustic vinyl layer helps soften noise levels inside the vehicle by as much as 6 dB in the frequency range where wind noise is most annoying and by 2 to 3 dB overall. And the special polyvinyl butyral (PVB) layer also helps cut the vibration noise stemming from the vehicle’s engine compartment.

Added Advantages

In addition to a quieter passenger cabin, the use of an acoustic windshield also offers the potential of weight savings.

For example, by using the new windshield material, the weight of a Navigator windshield could be trimmed by about seven pounds by using thinner glass. The acoustic glass can also be used for side and back windows and moonroofs, adding to more weight savings.

Vehicles with Acoustic Windshields

For the 2008 model year, Ford Escape, Ford Expedition, Ford Focus, Lincoln MKX, Lincoln Navigator and Mercury Mariner are equipped with an acoustic windshield.

For the 2009 model year, Ford Flex, Ford F-150 Platinum Edition and Lincoln MKS are slated to include acoustic windshields. More Ford, Lincoln and Mercury vehicles will get the windshield in 2010.

About Carlite

Carlite is a business unit of Automotive Components Holdings, established by Ford in 2005 to ensure the flow of quality components and systems to the automaker.

Virtual Technology Improves Vehicle Manufacturing Process

By using virtual ergonomics technology, we’ve redesigned manufacturing jobs to be less physically stressful on workers, which has helped reduce injuries, improve vehicle quality and lower production costs.

Reducing Repetitive MotionsVirtual ergonomics combines advanced motion-capture technology with human modeling software to help our engineers analyze and redesign assembly line actions.

Our virtual ergonomics process follows these steps to improve the vehicle manufacturing process:

• A computer-generated virtual assembly line workstation is created.
• In the virtual assembly line workstation, an engineer outfitted with special sensors performs an assembly line operation while sophisticated cameras capture the movements.
• The captured movements are loaded into a computer where modeling software identifies and predicts the impact of long-term repetitive motions.
• As repetitive motions are identified, changes to the assembly line actions can be made to reduce injuries, reduce manufacturing costs and improve quality.

Committed to Virtual ToolsWe’ve been using virtual tools to improve ergonomics since 2000 and we’re currently collaborating with the University of Michigan on a consortium to further develop human modeling and predict motion.

Ford Dealer

* The GQRS study, conducted for Ford by RDA Group, asks customers of all major makes and models to comment on vehicle trouble and rate their overall satisfaction with their three-month-old vehicles.

Ford Motor Company and Ford Motor Company Fund are responding to the need resulting from these terrible events with donations toward immediate recovery efforts.

In China, the company has announced an initial donation of 5 million RMB, Renminbi is the official currency of China, (over USD$700,000) in cash and vehicles together with its joint venture partners and investment companies in China. Ford Transit vehicles, including ambulances, will play a pivotal role in supporting relief efforts for the victims of the China Wenchuan earthquake.

Read the news release.

Ford employees throughout the world can also help by making personal donations to the GlobalGiving project. Simply visit www.globalgiving.com/ford to make an online donation. Ford Fund will match employee donations up to 500,000 RMB for contributions to the China relief effort that are made through the GlobalGiving website only.

Employees will be able to select one of three relief projects in China via the GlobalGiving website. U.S. employee donations are tax deductible.

In Myanmar, where Ford does not have operations, Ford Fund has pledged $50,000 to support the delivery of basic relief, such as clean drinking water, food and shelter, as well as rebuilding of basic infrastructure. Our contribution directly supports the GlobalGiving project: Myanmar Cyclone Relief in Irrawaddy, where we believe there’s a real opportunity to have an immediate impact and give support to first responders.

Seeing in the Dark

Night vision technology enables someone to see objects clearly at night at distances of up to several hundred yards in the absence of any artificial light. Night vision technology is useful for commercial businesses, military applications and drivers.

Improved Night Vision Technology

Our researchers wanted to produce an economical night vision technology for large-scale use in vehicles. The product they wanted to develop had superior picture clarity and reduced the blinding tendency of night vision products already available. Our Active Laser Night Vision did just that.

In all applications, Active Laser Night Vision provides a clear view of obstructions and isn’t influenced by heat-emitting objects. The U.S. Army Research, Development & Engineering Command (RDECOM) has called Active Laser Night Vision “the cutting edge of laser illumination.”

Improving Nighttime RescuesAfter Hurricane Charley hit the west coast of Florida, rescuers in Punta Gorda used Active Laser Night Vision to search for survivors. The size of an oversized flashlight, Active Laser Night Vision is as effective as a large spotlight. However, the night vision beam allows the rescue personnel to work without the glare a spotlight would produce.

Ford Dealer After Hurricane Charley hit the west coast of Florida, rescue personnel used Active Laser Night Vision to search for survivors.

Ford Motor Company’s direct contributions will include a cash donation of 1 million RMB and Ford Transit vehicles worth another 1 million RMB, including ambulances and other vehicles needed to support the relief efforts. Changan Ford Mazda Automobile Co. is contributing 1.5 million RMB cash, while Jiangling Motors Co. will donate JMC/Ford vehicles worth 1.5 million RMB to support the relief efforts.

“We are greatly concerned and we are continuing to monitor the situation very closely. Through all of our efforts, we are working to support the rescue teams and organizations working tirelessly to provide relief and assistance to the victims of this natural disaster,” said Robert Graziano, president and CEO of Ford Motor China. “We’ll continue to work with our global operations, as well as our dealers and suppliers, to assess and identify additional ways where we can assist the local counties and emergency relief efforts.”

Ford Motor Company is currently working with the Ford Fund to accept individual contributions from the company’s global workforce, who can pledge donations through www.globalgiving.com/ford. The Company plans to match Ford employee contributions up to a total of RMB 500,000. The funds donated via the Ford Fund and Global Giving will be given to the American Red Cross to assist in their ongoing earthquake relief efforts in China. Ford Dealers are happy.

Ford Motor employees in China have also started internal collections of food and clothing, which will be delivered with the donated Ford vehicles. The Ford Fund and Ford Motor China are also discussing ways to provide financial support for future employee volunteer activities that will support the relief efforts. As a responsible corporate citizen, Ford Motor Company has been active in contributing to China’s social well-being while developing its business in China. Over the past decade, the company has made various contributions in environmental protection, road safety, health and hygiene and education programs.

About Ford Motor in China

Ford Motor Company, a global automotive industry leader based in Dearborn, Mich., manufactures or distributes automobiles in 200 markets across six continents. With about 245,000 employees and about 100 plants worldwide, the company’s core and affiliated automotive brands include Ford, Jaguar, Land Rover, Lincoln, Mercury, Volvo and Mazda. The company provides financial services through Ford Motor Credit Company. Ford’s wholly owned subsidiaries, joint ventures and investment in China include Ford Motor (China) Limited, Ford Motor Research & Engineering (Nanjing) Co., Ltd., Ford Automotive Finance (China) Ltd., Changan Ford Mazda Automobile Co., Ltd., Changan Ford Mazda Automobile Co., Ltd. Nanjing Company, Changan Ford Mazda Engine Co., Ltd. and Jiangling Motors Co., Ltd

Beginning in September 2005, Ford will offer SIRIUS Satellite Radio – the premium satellite radio provider — on its 2006 F-150. Early in 2006, Explorer will begin offering the factory-installed option. Then later in the year, the all-new 2007 Sport Trac will join the ranks.

Now it will be easier than ever for Ford customers to tap into over 120 channels of SIRIUS Satellite Radio This includes 65 original commercial-free music channels and 55 world-class sports, news, talk and entertainment channels. SIRIUS is the exclusive Satellite Radio partner for the NFL. Hear the SIRIUS NFL Sunday Drive featuring live play-by-play of the entire NFL.

Even better, the factory-installed option provides easy control of SIRIUS Channels through your factory radio and has superior sound quality over aftermarket solutions sold at electronics stores.

SIRIUS offers content and quality that AM/FM doesn’t have, and can’t offer. It’s everything from Rock, Pop, and Jazz to Country, Classical and Latin. Ford Dealers enjoy live performances, interviews, and acclaimed on-air talent direct from SIRIUS’ New York studios broadcasted nationwide via satellites to your vehicle in clear digital-quality sound!

“Ford Motor Company is dedicated to technological advancements and providing features that our customers want. The SIRIUS service fits very well with our commitment to bring new car buyers the most innovative applications and services in their vehicles,” says Jeff Wood, Director, and Electrical & Electronic Systems Engineering at Ford Motor Company.

“When you add premium programming from SIRIUS to quality vehicles from Ford, you have an unbeatable combination that will enhance the driving experience of any Ford customer.” said Mel Karmazin, CEO of SIRIUS

SIRIUS Satellite Radio will also remain a dealer-installed accessory in the Crown Vic, Escape, Expedition, Explorer, Sport Trac and Thunderbird vehicles. Future plans call for Ford to expand the factory-installed SIRIUS . option to targeting up to 17 additional vehicle lines.

“From this point forward, innovation will be the compass by which the company sets its direction,” Ford told . H0000e is renewing the promise of Ford Motor Company – to again be first in delivering innovative products to our customers – stylish in design, safer for families, first in technology that uses new fuels and offers new services.
Presently, Ford produces about 24,000 hybrid vehicles annually. Ford is the only American auto company to produce hybrids and was the first in the world to offer an SUV hybrid. That vehicle was the Ford Escape Hybrid, the cleanest, most fuel-efficient SUV on the road. The critically acclaimed Ford Escape Hybrid added to its growing list of recognitions and accolades the title of North American Truck of the Year at this year’s North American International Auto Show.

Shortly after receiving that award from a distinguished panel of 50 automotive journalists, Ford announced it would pull ahead to this year the production of its second hybrid, the Mercury Mariner Hybrid. Mercury began taking orders for the Mariner Hybrid.

By 2008, Ford will have five hybrids on the road, including the Ford Escape, Mercury Mariner, Ford Fusion, Mercury Milan and Mazda Tribute. By 2010, Ford plans to increase hybrid production to approximately 250,000 units annually – with more than half of the Ford, Lincoln and Mercury lineup having hybrid capability.

Ford’s anticipated six- and seven-passenger crossover, the Flex, will start at $28,995 including shipping charges, according to a report in Automotive News citing dealer sources. That essentially matches the lowest priced GM Lamdba vehicle (at least until the Chevy Traverse arrives in showrooms), the Saturn Outlook, which starts at $28,995, without destination fees.

While FWD Flex SEs will do battle with the Saturn Outlook and the upcoming Toyota Venza, among many others, an AWD Flex Limited — priced at $37,255 — can ostensibly challenge the Buick Enclave, which carries an MSRP of $35,540 for a base AWD model (without destination or delivery fees).

The Flex goes on sale this summer. To read our first impressions of the Flex from from a Ford Dealer, click here. To read about how much less than $28,995 the Flex cost in Ford’s preliminary Build and Price feature from last August, click here.

Ford Motor Company’s single most important new-model design and development program this decade. The F-150 is a phenomenon: More than 33 million have been sold since the nameplate was launched in 1948, and the F-Series has been America’s best-selling truck for 31 years straight. Last year, one in three vehicles carrying the Blue Oval badge sold in America was an F-Series. On a world scale, the F-Series accounts for 13 percent of global Ford Motor Company sales — including Volvo, Jaguar, Land Rover, Mazda, the lot. This thing is a big deal in Dearborn.

Chief engineer O’Leary and chief designer Schiavone seem remarkably relaxed about it all, however, as they walk us through the detail of the new F-150. That’s because they’re old hands at this game: They and their teams worked together on P221, the F-150 that launched in 2004. O’Leary’s spent 30 years at Ford, most of it working on truck programs. Schiavone grew up around trucks — his father was in the construction business — and has helped design three generations of F-150. These guys know trucks.

They understand that, even though barely 20 percent of customers will ever use the 2009 F-150 as a hard-core work tool, it’s become more important than ever that it looks truck tough on the outside and is truck tough under the skin. “It’s almost the modern horse, a bit of a cowboy culture thing,” says Schiavone. “Trucks grew out of the occasional imperative,” says O’Leary, “I have the capability if I need it.”

Both men also understand that full-size-pickup buyers are among the most conservative consumer groups in the auto biz. Which is why the 2009 F-150 is a carefully considered study in evolution, not revolution. It starts with the fully boxed frame, which is 25 pounds lighter and 10 percent stiffer, thanks to hydroformed high-strength-steel side rails. The double wishbone short- and long-arm front suspension with coil-over shocks shares components with the 2008 Expedition. The 36mm front stabilizer is hollow and eight pounds lighter than the previous component. At the rear are six-inch-longer leaf springs, the extra length forward of the axle centerline for better lateral compliance and reduced rear-axle steer.

So far, so truck. But O’Leary’s engineering team has delved into Ford’s electronic goody bag to give the new F-150 a level of refinement, security, and user-friendliness unheard of in a pickup truck a few years ago. Ford’s traction- and stability-control systems are now standard on all F-150 models, from the base work truck up. In addition, Ford’s software geeks have figured out a way of using these systems to detect trailer sway: By tracking the yaw motions of the truck, the system can sense whether a trailer is swinging back and forth and then use a combination of braking and engine torque control to bring it back under control. If the F-150 is fitted with Ford’s optional Trailer Brake Controller, the system also will use the trailer brakes to bring things back under control.

Ford also has developed a backup camera system for the F-150. No big deal-other automakers offer similar ones-but Ford’s includes a centerline that makes it a cinch to back up to a trailer hitch. And once underway, the new six-speed automatic transmission includes a towing mode that not only holds a lower gear for hauling up hills, but cleverly works to hold the rig to a constant speed on a downhill stretch. “Most of our customers aren’t everyday towers, they’re sometime towers, and that can be a bit scary at times,” says O’Leary. “So we went after technologies to keep the customer out of trouble when towing a trailer.”

Pickup-truck buyers brag about two things: towing performance and payload capacity. O’Leary claims the new F-150 has class-leading towing capacity across all cab configurations, and the industry’s highest payload capacity. You’ll just have to put up the barroom arguments until we can test that out for ourselves. But the fact the new F-150 will be available only with V-8 engines under the hood makes a strong statement on paper. Base powerplant, even for the pool guy’s regular cab XL, is the 4.6-liter two-valve V-8 which makes 248 horses at 4750 rpm and 294 pound-feet of torque at 4000 rpm. Although still hooked to a four-speed automatic, O’Leary claims the engine delivers the same fuel economy as the 4.2-literV-6 that’s the base engine in the current F-150.

An all-new 4.6-liter three-valve engine, based on the Mustang small-block, will be the new F-150’s volume-selling powerplant. This engine makes 290 horses at 4750 rpm and 317 pound-feet of torque at 4000 rpm and drives through the new six-speed automatic. Despite the extra power, O’Leary says the new engine returns better fuel economy (about one mpg on the highway, and two mpg in the city, on comparable 4×2 models) than the base version.

Ford Dealer

Boasting just 300 horsepower but weighing in at 6104 pounds, the 2008 Ford Expedition seemed a lock to be a total slug. But thanks to a six-speed automatic, 365 pound-feet of torque, and four-wheel vented disc brakes, the Ford hustles to 60 and back to zero. Nevertheless, even with 20-inch wheels wearing 55-series Pirellis, the Expedition was unable to cheat the laws of physics, at least in a curved line, posting a slow figure-eight time (31.0 seconds) and low lateral acceleration (0.68 g).

Out on the twisty roads through Kennedy Meadows, the Expedition’s moves supported these numbers, its soft suspension responding with plenty of roll and dive. And squat? Not enough oomph for that. “Feels sluggish right out of the gate,” opines Truck Trend’s editor-in-chief Mark Williams. “You can tell there’s a lot of weight here, and the engine doesn’t seem interested in compensating.” Sure, there are six speeds, but without a true manual mode, the tranny hunts with the same fervor as Dick Cheney.”

Still, the Ford handles well for such a big girl. Says editor-at-large Arthur St. Antoine, “Although it rolls into corners, it doesn’t plow like a tractor — it hangs on impressively and even shrugs off mid-corner undulations that can set the other rigs heaving up and down.” The steering, while heavy in feel and slow on turn-in, did deliver linear response, and the brakes felt strong and a match for the cumbersome curb weight. Off road, the Expedition handled the snow with aplomb. “This is where the massive weight helps push the tires to the ground for grip,” claims Williams. Senior editor Ed Loh adds, “It’s reassuring over snowy roads-no slipping, no sliding.”

Inside our King Ranch tester, every editor was impressed by the luxurious “Chaparral” leather, the ultraquiet ambiance, the rearview mirror with integrated backup video screen, and the capacious cabin, the last trumping the others’ third-row headroom and legroom. For transporting Eddie and the entire Bauer clan, the Expedition is tough to beat. Plus, the third row comes with a powerfolding feature, alleviating any back-breaking exercises, and the second row boasts a useful “Cargo Mode,” which lays the middle row flat with the pull of a lever.

From the driver’s seat, though, the view is somewhat disappointing. The instrument panel, with its mix of round and rectangular gauges and chrome, plastic, and wood trim, appears retro for the sake of being retro and at the expense of good function. But with its roomy interior, clever packaging, and commendable offroad performance, not to mention being the only one with cooled front seats and power runningboards, the Ford presents a strong package overall.

While Wall Street is busy analyzing the merits of his replacement as CEO of Ford Motor Co.–Alan Mulally, a 37-year veteran of Boeing–it is well worth spending a moment to examine the spectacle of a well-known American CEO voluntarily handing the reins to somebody else. The move at Ford was not a planned succession-Mulally has practically no experience in the auto industry-and Bill Ford, at 49, is hardly due to retire. And the announcement comes as Ford Motor has been spinning its wheels to regain a competitive edge in the marketplace. Was it a striking act of humility by Bill Ford to reach out and seek some help? Or a no-confidence vote in himself?

Ford Dealer

Here are a few hints. First, Ford Motor under Bill Ford’s leadership has been bleeding cash and losing market share, like cross-town rival General Motors. In the first half of 2006, Ford lost $1.3 billion. That’s a huge number. Through 2005, the company’s lending arm had more than offset losses in the core automotive segment, but no more. The stock, after running up to about $16 a share in 2003, has been on a steady slide and now trades at about $8.

More telling have been Ford’s fits and starts-mostly fits-in terms of turning itself around. The current “Way Forward” reform plan is at least the third revitalization effort under Bill Ford’s tenure. There have been plant closures and job reductions, each advertised as the solution, only to be followed by more of the same. And this year Wall Street has been clamoring for very scarce details about exactly how the Way Forward plan is going to work. Trust us, has been Ford’s general answer. Wall Street hasn’t.

Ford Dealer
It was also disappointing to hear the company backpedal from its ambitious goal-announced personally by Bill Ford, a self-described environmentalist-to sell 250,000 hybrids a year by 2010. For a brief shining moment, it sounded like some determined, visionary leadership was emanating from Detroit. But then Bill Ford began whimpering about building other kinds of fuel-saving technology instead (technology that would also be cheaper), and the company backed away from its hybrid commitment.

Strong leaders underpromise and overdeliver. Bill Ford has done the opposite: made commitments he hasn’t been able to fulfill. Investors have been relatively kind to him, considering the hang-the-CEO ethos that has followed the Enron-Tyco-WorldCom fiascos, probably because there is something vaguely quaint and reassuring about family involvement in a company as big as Ford. But Bill Ford, simply put, has not been effective.

The smartest move of Bill Ford’s five-year tenure as CEO may have been putting somebody else in charge. When Bill Ford took over the top job in 2001, the company was reeling from the Firestone tire scandal and a series of missteps by the CEO at the time, Jacques Nasser. Bill Ford, great-grandson of Henry Ford, was seen as a steady guiding hand who would help return the company to its roots.

Now it’s up to his successor, an aeronautical engineer who drives a Lexus, to return the company to its roots. Bill Ford remains executive chairman, a job that will allow him to focus on strategic issues but get him off the hook for quarter-to-quarter performance. Yet for the hand-wringing that is surely underway at Ford-one of America’s most notoriously insular big companies-Mulally seems to be a good choice. He helped turn around Boeing’s core business, its commercial airplane unit, and has deep experience in the kind of heavy manufacturing that Ford must once again master.

Nonetheless, Ford’s turnaround will continue to be slow and grueling for investors. The Way Forward plan may very likely be put on hold, as Mulally does a top-to-bottom review and puts his own stamp on it-or starts over. Steep production cuts already announced for the second half of 2006 will cut into revenues and lead to a further dip in market share. And Ford’s core problems-an overdependence on trucks and big SUVs, and overgenerous labor contracts-will take years to reverse, no matter who is in charge.

It is courageous for Bill Ford to recognize that he is not the man destined to implement the tough changes Ford desperately needs. But historians should ask whether he was qualified in the first place.

In its third big restructuring announcement in three years–and its first under new CEO Alan Mulally–Ford says it plans sweeping changes to make the automaker competitive again and return it to profitability. There will be huge numbers of job cuts, painful downsizing, revamped plans to build hot cars, and the discontinuation of sluggish models. Nobody disputes that Ford desperately needs some dramatic fixes. The question is, this time, is Ford serious? For the moment, the answer seems to be no.

Immediately after Ford outlined its updated “Way Forward” plan, Merrill Lynch downgraded Ford’s stock from a neutral rating to “sell.” Analyst John Murphy highlighted several shortcomings in a note to clients: Capacity cuts are too shallow; there was no scheme for dealing with huge losses at Ford’s Jaguar subsidiary; there was no major news about speeding the introduction of badly needed new models.

“The details of the accelerated Way Forward fall below expectations,” Murphy wrote. “It’s missing a lot.” In the first hour after the announcement, Ford’s stock price fell 12 percent, to below $8.

Investors are getting used to letdowns from Ford. It was only eight months ago, in January, that Ford unveiled, with great fanfare, its initial Way Forward plan to fix the company. But the company never revealed many specific details. Now, in an “update” press conference, the company has admitted that it aimed too low with its initial targets.

“A lot has changed since January,” said Mark Fields, Ford’s president for North American operations.

Actually, not all that much has changed since the last time Ford insisted it was getting its act together. Fields highlighted a number of factors that have set Ford back recently: rising gas prices, a consumer shift away from big trucks and SUVs, rising prices for steel and other commodities. But all of those trends have been visible inside the industry for at least a year, in some cases much longer.

Analysts have been highlighting Ford and GM’s perilous overreliance on large vehicles since early 2005, for one thing. And doesn’t everybody in America know that gas prices have been spiking? That it now costs $60 or more to fill up an SUV? That a midsize crossover that averages 25 mpg is a lot more appealing than a lumbering SUV that averages 14?

Fields, who has earned street cred for his role in turning Mazda from an also-ran into an exciting, profitable automaker, has promised more “candor” from Ford. And Mulally–who stayed largely in the background during Friday’s announcement–is a turnaround specialist who did lots of heavy lifting to help fix Boeing’s commercial airplane unit. If Fields and Mulally want to be totally honest, they might also admit that huge questions remain about whether Ford finally understands its own dilemma and whether it has enough courage in the executive suite to turn itself into a smaller, more efficient automaker.

As before, Ford’s specific moves sound significant. Here’s another constant: Many analysts doubt it will be enough. A few specifics:

Ford plans to cut $5 billion in annual costs by 2008. But that is $1 billion or so less than some experts think Ford needs.

Fields announced that overall, Ford will return to profitability “not before 2009.” This critical milestone has bounced around like a jalopy with a bad suspension, one key reason investors remain skeptical of Ford’s pronouncements. In January, Fields said profitability would come no later than 2008. To explain the delay, he said Ford could still meet the 2008 goal if it wanted but feels it must make key investments in products and technologies along the way, which requires pushing profitability out at least another year. Don’t be surprised if this target changes again, with fresh “market forces,” previously unforeseen, causing further delays.

The company will cut 14,000 white-collar jobs, through attrition, buyout offers, and firings if necessary. It’s a sad day at company HQ in Dearborn, but those cuts have to happen.

All of Ford’s 75,000 hourly workers will get buyout offers to help slash the manufacturing workforce. Whether that effort hits targets depends on how many workers take the offer. It’s worth noting that General Motors made a similar offer earlier this year, and it worked: More workers took the cash than expected.

Finally, Ford acknowledged what analysts have been forecasting for a long time: The company is going to get smaller and soon become America’s No.3 automaker, behind GM and Toyota. As Ford cuts capacity by 26 percent and stops selling unprofitable models, market share will fall from about 17 percent now to somewhere between 14 and 15 percent. Even that “does not seem aggressive enough,” argues Chris Ceraso of Credit Suisse, in a research note. The closure of two plants, in addition to 14 factory closings announced earlier this year, still may not reduce Ford’s capacity enough to match up with diminished demand. Ford Dealer
Ford, like GM, still has ample time to make believers out of skeptics. It remains a huge company with lots of talent in the ranks, meaningful brand names, and considerable market muscle. Mulally and Fields still need to demonstrate, however, that they have figured out how to leverage those assets rather than squandering them.

Ford Motor is feeling the squeeze as pickup trucks and SUVs go out of vogue because of soaring gas prices. The automaker said yesterday it’s extremely unlikely it can return to profitability in 2009. Ford said it would cut back truck and SUV production by up to 40 percent in the second half of this year, compared with a year earlier. Just a month ago, Ford had said it would make money next year. Full-size pickup sales fell 15 percent in the first quarter, and sales of full-size SUVs were down 28 percent. Billionaire investor Kirk Kerkorian’s offer to buy up to 20 million Ford shares at $8.50 apiece is suddenly looking more attractive, as Ford shares dropped by 8 percent, to $7.16, Thursday.

GM Says Strike Cost $1.8 Billion

General Motors said today that a strike at supplier American Axle & Manufacturing Holdings would cost the automaker $1.8 billion in the second quarter. Members of the United Auto Workers voted Thursday to end the nearly 11-week strike, which sidelined 3,650 workers and hampered production of pickups and SUVs at several GM plants. GM said second-quarter production would drop by 230,000 vehicles because of the work stoppage. The carmaker also said it contributed $215 million to help bring an end to the strike.

The Escape has a roomy interior and a spacious rear bench. Handling is relatively nimble, and the ride is OK. A 2008 freshening has been introduced with standard electronic stability control in all models except the hybrid, which doesn’t offer ESC.

It was a “do or die” campaign designed to redefine the Ford brand and boldly move the foundering automaker back into prominence and profitability.

But the highly touted and heavily researched “Bold Moves” has been scrapped after less than two years for a new multimillion-dollar marketing effort expected to be publicly launched during Tuesday’s “American Idol” show on the Fox network.

“Drive one” tells the story of Ford Motor Co.’s (F, Fortune 500) product lineup, improved quality and accomplishments in safety, fuel economy and technology, spokesman Jim Cain said in a statement Friday.

Ford employees and dealers on Thursday were given a video update on the project.

A Ford Web site features several highlights of the campaign’s four major focal points — Drive quality, Drive green, Drive safe, and Drive smart — all under the “Drive one” theme.

The automaker also is seeking the biggest blast for its marketing buck by airing the first commercial during the top-rated “American Idol.”

The show also was used to launch “Bold Moves,” whose strategy targeting values, attitudes and emotion rather than age and other demographics did little to turn around the automaker’s poor fortunes with consumers.

Ford posted a $2.7 billion loss a year ago and a $12.6 billion loss in 2006.

“Drive one” aims to introduce more potential car buyers to Ford vehicles, Cain said.

The ad campaign is one of the first big tests for Jim Farley, who was hired last fall to lead Ford’s global marketing efforts.

Prior to joining Ford, the 45-year-old Farley spent 17 years at Toyota Motor Corp., where he was known for innovative marketing campaigns. To get young buyers interested in Scion, for example, he parked the cars in front of clubs or at rock concerts.

Farley used similar tactics with “Drive one,” which asked buyers in different cities to try out a Ford and asked owners to talk up the brand to their friends. One commercial now on a Ford Web site shows some drivers’ surprised responses.

In an interview with The Associated Press earlier this year, Farley said Ford needs to re-establish trust with potential buyers and show them the vast improvements the company has made in quality, safety and other measures. Farley said he’s troubled that many buyers won’t even consider a Ford, and he’s gone so far as to meet with psychologists to figure out why.

“We can’t unlock this unless we’re real honest. We have to look in the mirror and say, ‘OK, no baloney. Where are we with customers? Take away Mustang and F-series, and where are we? Who are we?”‘ he said.

“When I do that, I see customers who want Ford to succeed, but they put the burden of responsibility on the company to unlock that key. You tell me why I should care about your company.”

Need to talk to the auto experts? Come to your local dealer!

Top-Selling Certified Brand Teams with Largest Online Auto Marketplace to Provide Convenient Access for Shoppers, Drive Leads to GM Dealers

GM Certified Used Vehicles, the industry’s top-selling manufacturer-certified used vehicle brand*, announced today that its 60,000-plus-vehicle inventory from 3,900-plus U.S. dealers is now listed on eBay Motors (www.ebaymotors.com), the Internet’s largest marketplace for buying and selling all things automotive.

GM Certified Used Vehicles (Chevrolet, Buick, GMC, Pontiac vehicles) and all other GM certified pre-owned brands (Cadillac, Saab, Saturn and HUMMER Certified Pre-Owned Vehicles) are now listing their national inventory in a classified listings format on the eBay Motors Certified Pre-Owned Showroom, a new hub designed to house manufacturer-certified used-vehicle inventory for franchise dealers. GM Certified Used Vehicles was the first manufacturer-certified brand to announce a commitment to list its entire national inventory in the eBay Motors CPO Showroom at no cost to dealers…Especially Ford Dealers.

The CPO Showroom provides convenient access to certified GM inventory to more than 12 million unique eBay Motors visitors each month. eBay Motors is consistently ranked the No. 1 automotive Web site, with 32 percent of all automotive minutes on the Web spent on eBay Motors, according to Nielsen//NetRatings.

GM dealers benefit from increased exposure of their vehicle inventory and branding on eBay Motors, while car shoppers experience the wide selection and convenient online-shopping experience provided by eBay Motors. The CPO Showroom is accessible from the eBay Motors homepage as well as at http://pages.motors.ebay.com/buy/cpo. Certified GM inventory within a shopper’s local area is included in general eBay Motors search results, making it convenient for consumers to find the right certified used vehicle.

Dealer inventory appears in the eBay Motors CPO Showroom as used-vehicle classified listings. GM dealers’ certified-used inventory automatically uploads using GM-customized templates, and dealers interact with customers via existing customer relationship management (CRM) systems. Consumers can view vehicle images and information from dealers within their local area, look at pricing, view incentives, learn more about the benefits of factory certification, and contact a dealer for more information or to set up an appointment. Consumers can communicate with dealers directly and through the eBay Motors platform.

“The eBay Motors CPO Showroom gives shoppers convenient access to our national inventory – and further reinforces GM’s commitment to interactive marketing,” said Mark Mathews, director, GM Used Vehicle Activities. “With the launch of the CPO Showroom, GM now offers dealers and consumers the industry’s most comprehensive used-vehicle online listings program, with listings on 300-plus leading automotive Web sites, including AutoTrader.com, Cars.com and AutoMercado.com, among others.” ]]> http://www.pierrefordblogs.com/index.php/2008/06/gm-certified-used-vehicles-national-inventory-goes-live-on-new-ebay-motors/feed/ 0 http://www.pierrefordblogs.com/index.php/2008/06/new-generation-ford-fiesta-revealed-at-auto-china-2/ http://www.pierrefordblogs.com/index.php/2008/06/new-generation-ford-fiesta-revealed-at-auto-china-2/#comments Wed, 18 Jun 2008 00:16:34 +0000 Kyle Sorenson http://pierrefordblogs.com/?p=378

In a blast of Passion Orange, Ford proudly revealed its all-new global small car �” the Ford Fiesta �” today as a vibrant five-door hatch. The all-new Ford Fiesta has been reinvented for a new generation of customers.

Designed and developed in Europe for sale in Europe, Asia, South Africa, Australia and the Americas between 2008 and 2010, the all-new Fiesta is the first major product of Ford’s new global product development process.

The all-new Ford Fiesta’s dynamic character is accentuated by its bold kinetic design. Its distinct character is further accentuated with major strides in craftsmanship, quality of materials and product choice while continuing to represent Ford Fiesta’s traditional strengths of practicality, value for money, agility and safety.

All- new Ford Fiesta clearly embodies the exterior hallmarks of kineticdesign, which has so convincingly infused emotion into the core of the Ford range in Europe and Asia.

The reveal in Europe in March of the three-door and five-door Fiesta hatch and now the China reveal of the five-door Fiesta hatch confirm that all-new Ford Fiesta will bring the most appealing elements of Verve Concept to production reality.

“I’ve been saying just wait for the all-new Fiesta to see how kinetic design can be translated into a small car,” said Martin Smith, Executive Director of Design for Ford of Europe. “Now the wait is over. New Fiesta evokes an instant emotional response that says ‘I want one’ which extends the traditionally practical values of the Fiesta brand to appeal to a new, style-conscious generation of small car buyers.”

Listening to Fiesta’s Audience
Market research is an important tool, but actually listening to the target Fiesta buyer was a key to developing the initial Verve Concepts and the resulting Fiesta. “Our customers told us the qualities they wanted in a new small car. They told us they wanted it to be bold, exciting, fun and they wanted to be proud to own and drive it,” said John Parker, Ford Motor Company executive vice president, Asia Pacific and Africa. “We’re hearing now from our potential customers that they are surprised and delighted. We’re confident a new generation of small car buyers will take a close look at the all-new Ford Fiesta.”

Fiesta Has Global Plans
The all-new Ford Fiesta is closely related to the exciting trio of Verve Concepts that were revealed globally at 2007 Frankfurt Motor Show as a three-door hatch, at 2007 Guangzhou Motor Show in China as a four-door notchback, and at 2008 North American International Auto Show in Detroit as another iteration of a four-door notchback. Both four-door Verve Concept sedans were tailored to regional market tastes.

Together, these concepts paved the way for the company’s new global small-car program for 2008 to 2010.

Ford designers and product development engineers in Europe have led the all-new Ford Fiesta’s global development process.

“The all-new Ford Fiesta is the first car born from our new global product development process,” said Joe Bakaj, Vice President of Product Development, Ford of Europe. “More than ever, we’re leveraging our global product development expertise, and this car sets the scene for future great products for customers around the world that are already being developed behind it in the Ford Global Product Development System pipeline.”

As the first step in this effort, a hydrogen fueling station will be developed and located at Clean Energy’s compressed natural gas (CNG) facility near Los Angeles International Airport (LAX).

The hydrogen station will be used by drivers taking part in Chevrolet’s Project Driveway, the world’s largest market test of fuel cell vehicles. It is expected to be operational by early fall.

GM and Clean Energy are discussing potential opportunities to expand this first station into a network of hydrogen fueling stations by leveraging Clean Energy’s natural gas fueling expertise and the real-world customer experience gained by fueling more than 14,000 vehicles daily at over 170 CNG stations across North America.

“Developing and growing hydrogen infrastructure is vital to GM’s efforts to bring larger volumes of fuel cell vehicles to the market,” said Mary Beth Stanek, director of energy and environmental policy & commercialization at General Motors. “We’re supporting this hydrogen station near LAX because we recognize a critical role for Clean Energy’s existing CNG infrastructure in helping expand the hydrogen infrastructure. We expect to learn important lessons from Clean Energy’s expertise in developing and operating a network of natural gas fueling stations.”

The LAX station will help both companies better understand the synergies between hydrogen and natural gas fueling.

“Working with General Motors in this highly significant project makes great sense,” said Andrew J. Littlefair, Clean Energy’s president and CEO. “Developing a cost-effective hydrogen infrastructure is a challenge. By leveraging the growing network of natural gas stations, a variety of hydrogen station designs can be introduced to the public. Ultimately, reforming pipeline natural gas to produce hydrogen at our stations may be done inexpensively, thereby taking advantage of the ready infrastructure. This approach can help accelerate a larger-scale deployment of hydrogen vehicles.”

Littlefair also noted that Clean Energy and GM can work to broaden the awareness of the societal and customer benefits of cleaner gaseous fuels as the world moves to diversify its sources of energy.

Chevrolet’s Project Driveway is putting more than 100 Equinox fuel cell vehicles in the hands of real customers to help Chevy and GM understand what it will take to bring larger numbers of fuel cell vehicles to customers around the world. Currently, the program has launched in Los Angeles, New York City and Washington D.C. with further deployments later this year in Europe and Asia.

• Sales in traditional Euro 19 markets increase by 6.4 per cent to 129,500
• Sales in Germany soared by more than 25 per cent and in France by 27 per cent
• Monthly sales record in Russia and in commercial vehicles

Ford of Europe’s business momentum continued with another strong sales month in April.

“Our sales volume grew in 14 of the Euro 19 markets, while our market share increased in 16 of those 19,” said Ingvar Sviggum, vice-president marketing, sales and service, Ford of Europe.

“These increases were achieved even after we had taken the strategic decision in some countries, particularly the UK and Germany, to limit our short-cycle business. In the UK, for example, this switch in emphasis has led to an increase in the number of vehicles sold to private retail buyers.

“It is particularly pleasing to note our performances in France and Germany where sales were up 27 per cent and 25 per cent respectively. Although driven in part by an industry recovery following last year’s increase in VAT in Germany and CO2 incentives introduced in France, there was visible progress in our performance in these two key markets. And Ford leads the market in Spain after the first four months of the year – a first for us in that country,” he added.

Ford sales in the Euro 19 countries were up by 6.4 per cent to 129,500 giving a market share of 8.1 per cent.

When sales in Russia, Turkey and the 30 Ford European Direct Markets are added, Ford of Europe’s sales for April totalled 161,140, an increase of 8 per cent over the same month last year.

Ford’s success in Russia continued with sales rising 17 per cent to 18,200 – a record month. Sales in Turkey also improved, by 7.8 per cent to 6,900, giving a market- leading share of 14.4 per cent.

The new Focus was Ford of Europe’s top-selling model in April (33,100) across the Euro 19 markets, followed by the Fiesta (26,900). Sales of the new Mondeo increased further to 14,800.

April was a record month for commercial vehicles in the Euro 19 markets, with sales increasing by 1,900 to 23,500. This record was primarily driven by the Ford Transit, with over 15,600 units sold.

In the first four months of this year, Ford of Europe has sold 550,700 vehicles in the Euro 19 markets, giving a market share of 8.7 per cent, up by 0.1 per cent versus the same period last year. Sales in Russia, Turkey and Ford’s European Direct Markets added a further 112,000 units, taking the total to 662,700 an increase of three per cent compared with last year.

“The new Ford Kuga which goes on sale next month will further strengthen the sales appeal of the blue oval, particularly as it benefits from the lowest CO2 emissions in the expanding compact 4×4 segment”, said Ingvar Sviggum.

Ford Dealer

The prototype is part of an effort to make pediatric crash dummies and tests more realistic.

The hope is they’ll lead to better vehicle restraints for children, the Dearborn-based automaker said in a statement.

Partners in the collaboration include Wayne State University in Detroit, Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, and the Takata Corp., which makes automotive safety systems.

Crash tests mainly focus on head and chest injuries, according to Steve Rouhana, a technical leader in Ford’s crash dummy testing.

“We really didn’t have the technology before to accurately measure abdominal response,” he said.

The silicone prototype features sensors that measure the severity of injuries sustained by the dummies during crash tests.

Focus sales rose 57 per cent in 2007 to 124,972 units. It was the fastest-growing mid-sized car in China last year, according to a company statement. Mondeo sales hit 14,845 units in China in just six weeks on the market.

The total figure of 216,324 vehicles counts sales of all Ford brands in the country, including Ford, Lincoln, Volvo, Jaguar and Land Rover. S-MAX was introduced in March, seven months before the Mondeo, and the two models were responsible for the bump to growth, according to a company statement.

“We are pleased with our growth in China,” said Mei-Wei Cheng, chairman and CEO of Ford Motor (China) Ltd. “We will continue to invest in China and expand our operations to prepare for the next phase of our strategic growth program.”

Ford Motor Co. and its joint-venture partners operate three vehicle assembly plants and one engine manufacturing plant in China. Ford operations in China also include an automotive financing company, a Nanjing-based sourcing and research and development center, and extensive sales and service operations.

Ford’s passenger car joint venture in China, Changan Ford Mazda Automobile Co., posted a 60 per cent increase in wholesale deliveries to 217,100 vehicles in 2007, the company said. Changan Ford produces Ford, Volvo and Mazda vehicles for the Chinese market.

The first Chinese-built Ford passenger car, the Ford Fiesta, was introduced in China in 2003.

But CAW President Buzz Hargrove says the union won’t agree to two-tier wages and other changes that were ratified by the United Auto Workers in the U.S.

The UAW agreed with all three Detroit-based automakers _ General Motors, Ford and Chrysler _ to a lower-tier pay and benefits schedule for some new hires, and the automakers say they expect significant cost savings. The new hires would make around US$14 per hour, less than half of what current assembly workers make. New hires also would get less-generous health and pension benefits than current workers.

Up to 20 per cent of Ford’s hourly workforce can be paid the lower wages, plus all the workers at two parts-making plants.

“We have challenges in front of us, but as we did with the UAW, we’re going to focus on what it takes to be competitive, what it means to be competitive, and then start from that basis and then try to find solutions that work for both parties,” Joe Hinrichs, Ford’s group vice-president of global manufacturing, told reporters this week.

Among those challenges is the strength of the Canadian dollar, which now is close to par with the U.S. dollar but historically had been worth far less. The loonie jumped as high as US$1.10 late last year and had steadily gained ground on its American counterpart since hitting an all-time low of 61.79 U.S. cents on Jan. 21, 2002.

The currency’s rise reflects strong growth in the Canadian economy because of high global prices for resources such as oil, minerals and agricultural products, all things Canada produces and exports in large amounts.

“Clearly, the recent challenges associated with currency add to already what were pre-existing issues, which were competitiveness of our operations and our agreements in Canada,” Hinrichs said.

But Hargrove said the exchange rate shouldn’t be an issue in the talks, which are scheduled to begin in July. Three-year contracts between Ford, General Motors Corp. (NYSE:GM) and Chrysler LLC and around 37,000 CAW members, expire Sept. 16.

Hargrove said that during the years the Canadian dollar was low compared with the U.S. dollar, there was no pressure on the UAW to bring its wages down to Canadian costs.

“We don’t anticipate it will be any different for us. We have no control over our currency,” he said.

Hargrove also said the CAW would not agree to a two-tier wage structure.

“That’s out of the question,” he said, adding that the lower wages and benefits affect quality, productivity and relationships between the union and its membership and between workers and the company.

But he said the CAW would be willing to look at other ways to reduce costs, such as work rule changes, or ways plants can raise quality and become more productive.

CAW hourly workers at Ford made an average wage of US$34 per hour in 2006, compared with $32.38 in the U.S., according to the company.

Ford has a key operation in Oakville, just west of Toronto, which makes hot-selling crossover vehicles for Ford and Lincoln and also is to manufacture the new Flex larger crossover, which will come to showrooms this fall.

Hinrichs said historically contracts between the company and the Canadian and U.S. unions have differed. But such costs are meaningless to carbuyers.

“The marketplace doesn’t look at a vehicle built in Canada versus a vehicle built in the U.S. as being different, and so we have to have a manufacturing model and a business model that works if we’re going to sell vehicles made in Canada in North America,” he said. “And that’s our challenge.”

It will also start making a low-cost small car intended to help the U.S. automaker boost its market share there.

The company says a significant part of the investment will go into developing new products, including the new small car within two years and an engine manufacturing facility by 2010.

Ford says it plans to double capacity at its existing plant near the southern Indian city of Chennai to 200-thousand cars over the next three years to accommodate production of the small car.

Today’s announcement comes on the eve of an auto show in New Delhi, where automobile manufacturers from around the world will showcase their products and explore strategies to expand in India.

As rising middle class incomes drive demand for cars in India, automakers are rushing with plans to make inexpensive compact hatchbacks that dominate the Indian roads.

The Indian market is dominated by Japan’s Suzuki, South Korea’s Hyundai and homegrown Tata Motors, all of which have strong offerings in the small car segment.

Companies like Ford have not had much success because they mostly tried to sell sedans.

“It’s important going forward,” CEO Alan Mulally said at a dinner with journalists in suburban Detroit.

Ford global product chief Derrick Kuzak said the automaker can’t yet share specific details of its plans for new rwd cars. But the comments on Tuesday were the first confirmation that Ford intends to go ahead with modern rwd cars.

“Yes, we’re working on a rear-wheel-drive plan for the enterprise,” Kuzak said. “It’s in the plan.”

Ford executives have long said they were exploring the possibilities. The company showed two key rwd concepts at the 2007 Detroit auto show: the Lincoln MKR and the Ford Interceptor.

But until now, company leaders stopped short of saying vehicles are in the product plans. Executives acknowledge they can build the vehicles using a new global rwd platform being developed in Ford’s Australian operations.

But that doesn’t mean production of rwd vehicles for global markets would be consolidated in Australia.

“There are good reasons not to: currency, freight,” said Joe Hinrichs, Ford group vice president of global manufacturing, on Tuesday.

In his speech, Mulally referred the press to the handy press release outlining all the wonderful greenness to come. Specifically that means, and here he and the release both strayed somewhat from the traditional keynote vagueness, turbocharged gasoline direct injection engines would be offered in high volumes on lighter Ford vehicles. First to get one of those will be the Lincoln MKS next summer. So that’s a good transitional technology to use to stretch out the world’s gasoline supply another few weeks.

Next on the list was weight reduction, something Californians are always pursuing. On this point he referred to his former job at Boeing, saying how important weight savings is, for instance, on an airplane going to Hawaii.

“Baggage claim is messy if you land short,” he said (hey, he made a joke!).

In his speech, Mulally said Ford would make greater use of lighter steel and aluminum alloys in future cars. The release said those weight reductions would amount to between 250 and 750 pounds per car.

Fifty percent of Ford cars will be biofuel-compatible by 2012, he said.

There will also be more hybrids–including gasoline plug-in hybrids and plug-in diesel hybrids as well as plain old diesel engines, all in efficient, small cars. He refused to be specific about when the plug-ins would be available, just as he had refused to be specific a few months before when he announced Ford would give SoCal Edison 20 plug-in hybrids to goof around with, someday, eventually.

“Through the years we’ve overpromised and underdelivered,” he said in response to a question about arrival dates for plug-ins. “We’re not talking about hundreds of vehicles, or thousands of vehicles, the question is how do we influence, in a big way, millions of vehicles.”

Many times, police agencies are faced with having to put together the pieces of evidence to determine what happened and why. In some cases, it is determined that one of the vehicles involved experienced some kind of failure that resulted in a collision. Quite often, that failure was an unexpected stall.

Think of all the times you put yourself in a vulnerable situation while driving and then think of what would happen if the engine were to suddenly stall. What follows is a list of some of the more common reason why engines, along with some precautionary steps to avoid such a situation.

Badly tuned engine — Have your drive train checked once a year for integrity and performance. Idle systems must be in proper working condition and carbon-free.

Overloaded engine — Air conditioning, charging system, water pump, power steering and other engine add-ons may overload the engine.

Dirty air or gas filter — essential for feeding the engine what it needs to run, they quickly become clogged in dusty environments.

Restricted exhaust — a free-flowing exhaust is a must for getting proper engine performance and preventing an excessive amount of backpressure that would choke the engine.

Poor electrical system — bad grounds are one of the most common reasons why systems fail. Rust and wear can cause enough degradation to greatly effect conductivity.

Negligent drivers — glancing at the gauges once in a while helps to avoid unexpected trouble. Watch for the Malfunction Indicators for oil pressure and engine temperature often.

Good fuel supply — if you use bargain gasoline, be sure to use the high grade every so often in order to keep injectors clean. Watch for and avoid water in the gasoline. Have the fuel pressure checked when doing a tune-up.

Sudden stops — a violent stop may stall your engine for the simple reason of the idle circuits not having enough time to kick in.

Good battery — an overloaded alternator can stall your engine unexpectedly; if the system voltage drops below minimum, your engine will stall.

Transmission — your transmission should be in top operating condition for proper performance. The converter switch or clutch should be checked annually.

Even if you always keep every part of your vehicle in tip-top condition, the other drivers on the road might not. Only purchase your vehicle from people you trust, and always stay alert behind the wheel.

NASCAR

Ford is one of four manufacturers in the three NASCAR series: Nextel Cup, Busch Series, and Craftsman Truck Series. Major teams include Roush Fenway Racing and Yates/Newman/Haas/Lanigan Racing. Ford’s racing teams debuted the Fusion race car, replacing the Taurus at the 2006 Daytona 500. Some of the most successful NASCAR Fords were the aerodynamic fastback Ford Torino and Mercury Montegos, and the aero-era Ford Thunderbirds.

Champ Car

Ford is the sole engine provider in the Champ Car series. The engines are manufactured by Cosworth.

Trans-Am

Ford has a storied history in the Trans-Am series from the 1970s through today, having won many championships and races with its Ford Mustang.

Drag racing

John Force has piloted his Drag Ford Mustang to several NHRA funny-car titles in recent seasons.

Indianapolis 500

Ford powered racing cars won the Indianapolis 500 17 times between 1965 and 1996.
Rubens Barrichello driving for the Stewart Grand Prix team in 1997
Rubens Barrichello driving for the Stewart Grand Prix team in 1997

Formula One

Ford was heavily involved in Formula One for many years, and supplied engines to a large number of teams from 1967 until 2004. These engines were designed and manufactured by Cosworth, the racing division that was owned by Ford from 1998 to 2004. Ford-badged engines won 176 Grands Prix between 1967 and 2003 for teams such as Team Lotus and McLaren. Ford entered Formula One as a constructor in 2000 under the Jaguar Racing name, after buying the Stewart Grand Prix team which had been its primary ‘works’ team in the series since 1997. Jaguar achieved little success in Formula One, and after a turbulent five seasons, Ford withdrew from the category after the 2004 season, selling both Jaguar Racing (which became Red Bull Racing) and Cosworth (to Gerald Forsythe and Kevin Kalkhoven).
Marcus Grönholm driving the Ford Focus RS WRC 06 in 2006.
Marcus Grönholm driving the Ford Focus RS WRC 06 in 2006.

Rally

Ford has also a long history in rallying and has been active in the World Rally Championship since the beginning of the world championship, the 1973 season. Ford took the 1979 manufacturers’ title with Hannu Mikkola, Björn Waldegård and Ari Vatanen driving the Ford Escort RS1800. In the Group B era, Ford achieved success with Ford RS200. Since the 1999 season, Ford has used various versions of the Ford Focus WRC to much success. In the 2006 season, BP-Ford World Rally Team secured Ford its second manufacturers’ title, with the Focus RS WRC 06 built by M-Sport and driven by Flying Finns Marcus Grönholm and Mikko Hirvonen. Ford is the only manufacturer to score in the points for 87 consecutive races; since the 2002 season opener Monte Carlo Rally.

Drifting

Ford has branched out into drifting with the introduction of the new model mustang. Most noticeable is the Tourqoise and Blue Falken Tires Mustang driven by Vaughn Gittin Jr, A.K.A. “JR”. with 750 RWHP (Rear Wheel Horsepower).

Sports cars

Ford sports cars have always been visible in the world of endurance racing. Most notably the GT40 won the prestigious 24 Hours of Le Mans four times in the 1960s and still stands today as one of the all-time greatest racing cars. The GT40 is the only American car to ever win overall at Le Mans.

Ford won the manufacturers title in 2005 in the Grand-Am Cup series with the FR500C Mustang race car.

Touring cars

Ford has campaigned touring cars such as the Focus, Falcon, and Contour/Mondeo and the Sierra Cosworth in many different series throughout the years. Notably, the Mondeo finished 1,2,3 in the British Touring Car Championship in 2000, and the Falcon finished 1,2,3 in the Australian V8 Supercar Series in 2005.

Formula Ford

This formula for single-seater cars without wings and originally on road tires were conceived in 1966 in the UK as an entry-level formula for racing drivers. Many of today’s racing drivers started their car racing careers in this category.

V8 supercars

An Australian touring car series in which Ford competes against Holden (a subsidiary of General Motors).

Ford has major manufacturing operations in Canada, Mexico, the United Kingdom, Germany, Brazil, Argentina, Australia, the People’s Republic of China, and several other countries, including South Africa where, following divestment during apartheid, it once again has a wholly owned subsidiary. Ford also has a cooperative agreement with Russian automaker GAZ.

Since 1989, Ford has acquired Aston Martin (which it sold again on March 12, 2007, but it will retain a $77 million stake in the sports car maker), Jaguar, Land Rover, from the United Kingdom and Volvo Cars from Sweden, as well as a controlling share (33.4%) of Mazda of Japan, with which it operates an American joint venture plant in Flat Rock, Michigan called Auto Alliance. It has spun off its parts division under the name Visteon. Its prestige brands, with the exception of Lincoln, are managed through its Premier Automotive Group.

Ford’s FoMoCo parts division sells aftermarket parts under the Motorcraft brand name.

Ford’s non-manufacturing operations include organizations such as automotive finance operation Ford Motor Credit Company. Ford also sponsors numerous events and sports facilities around the nation, most notably Ford Center in downtown Oklahoma City and Ford Field in downtown Detroit.

Overall the Ford Motor Company controls the following operational car marques: Ford, Jaguar, Land Rover, Lincoln, Mazda, Mercury, and Volvo; Jaguar, Land Rover, and Volvo are currently part of the Premier Automotive Group.

The Mercury Mariner compact SUV was introduced in 2005. It is a sibling of the Mazda Tribute and Ford Escape, although it is slightly more upmarket than the other two. Mechanically, it is identical to the Ford Escape. It also includes stylistic differences, such as a two-tone interior, European-style turn signal repeaters, monotone cladding, and the signature Mercury “waterfall” front grille. The Mariner is Mercury’s first car-based SUV, and is slotted below the Mountaineer in the lineup.

In 2006 the Mariner Hybrid hit dealer lots. It is mechanically identical to its sibling, the Ford Escape Hybrid. Like the Ford Escape Hybrid, The Mariner Hybrid is a “full” hybrid electric system, meaning the system can switch automatically between pure electric power, pure gasoline engine power, or a combination of electric battery and gasoline engine operating together, for maximum performance and efficiency at all speeds and loads. When braking or decelerating, the Mariner’s hybrid system uses regenerative braking, where the electric drive motor becomes a generator, converting the vehicle’s momentum back to electricity for storage in the batteries. With 155 horsepower (116 kW), the Mariner Hybrid has nearly the same acceleration performance as the conventional 200 hp (150 kW) V6 Mariner.

On September 7, 2006 Ford delivered a special “Presidential Edition” Mercury Mariner Hybrid to former President Bill Clinton. Its custom features include

* LED lighting
* A 110-volt outlet
* Rear bucket seats
* Center console & rear seat fold-out writing desks
* Personal DVD players for each seat
* Refrigerator
* Increased rear seat legroom

There have also been several undisclosed security modifications made to the vehicle.

For the 2008 model year the Mariner was significantly updated with a new look although built on the Ford CD2 platform used by the previous generation Mariner.

The changes included a new seats, headlights, taillights, a new liftgate, a higher beltline and new doors and wheels.

The interior was also significantly updated with higher quality materials and more refined features.

The engines remained the same but the 3.0L Duratec V6 has been modified to reduce fuel consumption by 10%

The first 2008 Mercury Mariner was unveiled at the South Florida International Auto Show on October 6, 2006 and was touted as a new direction for the Mercury Brand.

Awards:

* Consumers Digest best buy for 2005,2006,2007,
* Mercury Mariner Hybrid was awarded 2006 Green Car of the Year.

The metropolitan areas of San Francisco-Oakland, Washington, D.C.-Virginia-Maryland, and Atlanta were tied for the second most gridlocked areas, according to the study by the Texas Transportation Institute.

Drivers in those three areas spent an extra 60 hours on average during peak periods, defined as 6 a.m. to 9 a.m. and 4 p.m. to 7 p.m., the study found.

But drivers in other regions around the country were not much luckier. The report found traffic gridlock worsened in all 437 large, medium and small urban centers in 2005.

“What causes congestion? In a word, ‘you.’ Most of the Mojave Desert is not congested,” wrote report authors David Schrank, associate research scientist, and Tim Lomax, research engineer.

The Texas Transportation Institute is an arm of the Texas A&M University System in College Station, Texas.

In the last 20 years, travel has increased by 105 percent in metropolitan areas but road capacity — measured by freeways and major thoroughfares — has only risen 45 percent.

Travel by public transportation in 85 urban areas climbed 30 percent in the past two decades.

The study found that drivers in the Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington, Texas, area had average delays of 58 hours.

San Diego drivers faced an average delay of 57 hours, and Houston drivers had an average delay of 56 hours. Detroit was in a three-way tie with San Jose, California, and Orlando, with average delays of 54 hours, according to the report.

Traffic forced U.S. urban dwellers to travel 4.2 billion hours more and buy an extra 2.9 billion gallons of fuel in 2005, for a total cost of $78 billion, the study said.

That worked out to 220 million more hours and 140 million more gallons of fuel than in 2004, with the total cost rising $5 billion.

Solving the problem not only includes focusing on “critical” corridors and easing choke points but making work schedules more flexible and building more areas where people can walk to work, the study said.

That also marks the beginning of production of Ford’s new 5.4-liter, 3-valve Triton V-8 that will power the all-new 2004 Ford F-150 pickup when it starts production this summer. The milestone 100-millionth V-8 engine will be installed in the first Ford F-150 built this year at Ford’s Norfolk (Virginia) Assembly Plant.

“We have a century of experience delivering great engines to our customers,” said Dave Szczupak, vice president, Powertrain Operations, Ford Motor Company. “That was an historic milestone for Ford and the auto industry. It’s fitting for this milestone to fall in our centennial year and fewer than 50 days before our company’s birthday on June 16. It is also fitting that our new 3-valve Triton V-8 is the special engine that marks this occasion for us.”

Henry Ford revolutionized the auto industry with the moving assembly line in 1914 and again when he introduced the industry’s first affordable, mass-produced V-8 engine in 1932. The engine featured an innovative “flathead” configuration – a side-valve engine made possible by industry-first engine block casting techniques developed by Ford engineers.

Famous Ford V-8s:

· Flathead V-8 engine:
Ford produced approximately 8 million Flathead V-8s between 1932 and 1953. These included the original 85 hp version, an economy 60 hp V-8 in 1936-37, and upgraded 90 hp, 95 hp and 100 hp engines.

· 302-cubic-inch and 5.0-liter OHV engines:
Best known as the longtime Ford Mustang engine, the Cleveland Engine Plant No. 1 built more than 16.9 million 302 and 5.0-liter V-8s from 1967-2000, including the fabled Boss 302, and a total of 24.3 million V-8 engines at Plant No. 1 between 1961 and 2000. Windsor Engine Plant produced more than 2 million 5.0-liter engines from 1983-1990.

· 351-cubic-inch V-8:
The “Cleveland,” or 351C, had a unique design that made it sought-after by enthusiasts. Cleveland Engine Plant No. 2 built more than 3.7 million 351 engines from 1969-1981. Windsor Engine Plant built nearly 8.5 million 351 engines.

· 427-cubic-inch V-8:
This was a member of the FE big block family, with special performance features like high compression and strong cross-bolted main bearings. It was constructed at Dearborn Engine Plant. Only about 6500 were built.

· Modular V-8/V-10 family:
Launched in 1991 with the 4.6-liter V-8, Ford’s modular engine design has lived up to expectations by forming the solid foundation for a host of engines tailored to FoMoCo products. Variations include 2-valve and 4-valve cylinder head designs, as well as the new 3-valve Triton. Engine blocks are cast from both iron and aluminum. Ford produces naturally aspirated and supercharged variants, including the 390-hp SVT Mustang Cobra. Romeo (Mich.) Engine Plant has built more than 6.8 million modular engines. Windsor has built more than 4.3 million. Essex Engine Plant began building 5.4-liter engines in August 2002 for the Australian Falcon.

· AJ-V8:
Jaguar, which joined the Ford Motor Company family in 1996, has built more than 265,000 high-performance AJ-V-8 engines for cars like its XK8 and XKR sports cars at its plant in the United Kingdom.

Of note is that Ford also released a detailed forecast of its fourth quarter performance and year end results, the latter of which the automaker believes could result in a small loss or actually breaking even. Keep in mind, Jaguar and Land Rover have yet to be sold and should be gone by early next year, which will infuse the company with some needed cash. As for Volvo, Ford appears committed to keeping the brand and working to improve its performance.

Nissan Pivo2

Nissan introduced the first PIVO concept two years ago here in Tokyo, and perhaps what’s most surprising is that they decided to build a second one. The PIVO2 looks like it’d be a perfect mascot car for a baseball team, with its spherical passenger compartment sitting on a 4-wheeled platform. The wheels can be turned in any direction and the passenger compartment itself can spin 360 degrees. Each wheel is fitted with an electric motor with power coming from advanced lithium-ion batteries. Not only is PIVO2 friendly to the environment, it also takes care of its driver. A “Robotic Agent” is fitted into the dashboard that recognizes the facial images of the driver, providing not only useful information for vehicle operation, but also “speaks to you to cheer you up or to soothe you accordingly.” Don’t look for this car driving down public roads anytime soon, but its quite popular here in Japan. And with Dogbert.

Mazda Taiki

Look closely enough and Mazda’s Takai just about bridges the gap between fantasy and reality, and that alone puts it pretty close to the top of our concepts list. The latest in the evolutionary scale of Mazda concepts got started with the Nagare in Los Angeles and follows the theme of “flow” (which is what the Japanese word Nagare means). Takai looks like the kind of car that a superhero comic illustrator might draw in a 25th century cityscape — yet at the same time it looks as though it just might work. It’s all about line rather than technology, although there’s bound to be some of that under the swoopy skin, too. It unequivocally gets our vote because any car that takes inspiration from the flow of a celestial maiden’s robes and whose design process included leaving resin-impregnated strips of gauze literally to take on the shape of the wind deserves to be appreciated. Yes, it has an astonishing Cd of only 0.25, and zero aerodynamic lift all round, but in the end it just looks stunning.

Toyota i-Real

Chances are good that no one will see this cruising down the road anytime soon, but the i-REAL could shape what a personal mobility vehicle may be one day. This spaceship-like conveyance resembles a segway with a seat and looks like it would fit perfectly in Xbox’s famed Halo series. The i-Real rides on two wheels at the front and one in the rear. A perimeter monitoring system detects when a collision is imminent and warns the driver by noise and vibration. Love it or hate it, the i-REAL provides a glimpse at a possible future for personal transportation. Maybe for the likes of Professor Xavier or Dr. Evil.

The stand and on the circuit will be two Ford Fiesta hatchbacks and four five-door Fusions with clutchless and standard manual or automatic gearboxes. And for those seeking maximum load capacity, the impressive Ford show line-up is completed by two Ford Mondeo 2.0 estate cars, a petrol automatic and a manual diesel.

These include Bluetooth for mobile phones; satellite navigation; Park Assist rear parking sensors; the ESP stability system; headlights both Xenon and adaptive (they follow the steering wheel); DVD entertainment systems and solar reflective windscreens, which keep car interiors cool in summer.

The Ford Expedition is a full-size SUV built by the Ford Motor Company. Introduced in 1997 it slots between the smaller Ford Explorer, and the now discontinued and larger Ford Excursion. The Expedition offers up to eight passenger seating and a range of V8 engines. It is similar to the Lincoln Navigator, especially for the 2004 model with the introduction of the Limited trim line. One million Expeditions have sold since 2004, reflecting high consumer demand for its family-friendly interior, cargo space, and high towing capacity. A specially modified Special Service Vehicle version is also available from Ford for law enforcement and fire departments. All Expeditions are built in Wayne, Michigan. This SUV (especially the larger EL/Max model for 2007) is once again Ford’s flagship SUV.

1997-2002

The Expedition was designed to compete with both the larger Chevrolet Suburban, and the smaller Chevrolet Tahoe and GMC Yukon, as well as the Toyota Land Cruiser. It replaced the full-size Ford Bronco. Seating capacity ranged up to eight passengers with the third-row rear seat option, and the Expedition could tow 8,000 lb (3,600 kg). Ford made changes for the 1999 Expedition. Both the 4.6L and 5.4L engines got more power without lowering the mpg. It also got a new grille, front fascia, and bumper with incorporated fog lamps in the lower valence.

2003-2006

The 2003 Expedition shared the Ford U platform for 8,300 lb (3,800 kg) towing. The rear axle and suspension was changed to an independent suspension configuration giving and a more refined ride. Popular new features included power folding third-row seats and turn-signal mirror lights.

The base 4.6 L V8 engine was dropped in 2005 as the 5.4 L V8 was updated with 24-valve technology.

AdvanceTrac® with Roll Stability Control™ is optional for 2005.

The Expedition uses the code U1 in the 5th and 6th positions of the VIN.

Engines:

* 2003-2005 4.6 L V8, 232 hp (173 kW)
* 2003-2005 5.4 L V8, 260 hp (194 kW)
* 2005-2006 5.4 L 24-valve V8, 300 hp (223 kW)

2007

For 2007, the Expedition was redesigned, utilizing the new T1 platform. The new platform provides 10% more torsional rigidity than the previous model, and includes the independent rear suspension. As in previous years, the Expedition is powered by the 5.4 L Triton V8 engine, rated at 300 hp (220 kW) and 365 lbf·ft (495 N·m) of torque, which when properly equipped can tow up to 9,100 lb (4,130 kg). In addition, a 4.6 L V8 gas-electric hybrid, rated the same for both power and torque as the 5.4 L may be available in future years and/or a 4.4 L V8 diesel engine, based off the Ford Lion V6 engine with estimates of 330 bhp (246 kW) and 515 ft·lbf (700 Nm) of torque respectively. The 2007 Expedition was unveiled at the Houston Auto Show rather than at Detroit, Los Angeles, or New York where most new models are, as 20% of all Expedition sales are in Texas. The third generation Expedition went on sale in August 2006. The first 2007 Expedition to roll off a Ford assembly line was donated by Ford to the Peter family of Jamaica, Queens, New York as part of an episode of the ABC series Extreme Makeover: Home Edition that aired May 7, 2006.

It is estimated by many experts in the Mustang Enthusiast Circles that there are only approximately 50 Pace Car Coupes that even exist, and of these, less than 10 are roadworthy. This is a chance to view 3 of them!

American Muscle has been adding some new products to their lineup this summer with some fresh new exterior accessories. One of the highlighted arrivals, Mustang light covers, will add a very unique look to your Mustang. The light covers blackout your existing headlights, taillights, or fog lights giving you a sleek and stylish look.

The interior is better than anything you’ll find in the US-market Escape, and yes, that shifter you see is connected to a 6-speed manual gearbox. A 134-horsepower (136 PS) turbo diesel lives under the bonnet, and both FWD and 4WD variants will be available.Stylish Ford Kuga crossover will be previewed production form ahead of sales launch in early 2008. Kuga is the latest showcase for Ford’s ‘kinetic design’. Impressive on-road driving dynamics with substantial off-road ability. One of the challenges of the Kuga development team was to give the vehicle Ford’s acknowledged driving quality while at the same time delivering substantial off-road ability.

Developed to deliver Ford driving quality while offering substantial off-road credentials, the Kuga will be available with a four-wheel-drive system capable of positively contributing to driving quality under normal conditions as well as giving a sportier dynamic ability.