The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety never rests, always thinking up new ways to expose flaws in contemporary passenger vehicles. Lately, the IIHS has begun applying the dreaded small overlap front crash test to the passenger side of new models. There’s a seat on that side for a reason, and it’s not inconceivable that a roadside utility pole or obstruction could take out that corner of the vehicle.

The latest IIHS test put popular midsize crossovers through their paces, exposing serious safety concerns in two models. Read More >

While the mainstay Mustang received a new face this year, the Shelby GT350 will persist with the older model’s mug through 2019. We don’t particularly mind, as its unique bumper already makes it look better than a standard coupe. Besides, the GT350 is supposed to be about driving excitement and setting blistering lap times — which is exactly where Ford spent its R&D money for the 2019 model.

Of course, the biggest upgrade the factory bestowed on the new Shelby is something you could have theoretically done at home. Working with Michelin, the Ford team engineered new set of Pilot Sport Cup 2 tires with a GT350-specific tread pattern and a different rubber compound that promises significantly improved acceleration, lateral grip, and braking performance. While you may not have had access to the brand new Cup 2s, you could have nabbed some Pirelli Trefeo Rs or opted for a set of full-on racing slicks. Just be sure to limit them to track use only.

Ford claims the 295/35 (front) and 305/35 (rear) donuts are optimized to improve stiffness. You’ll find them draped over 19-inch aluminum wheels, which are also new. But they’re not the only upgrades the GT350 sees for the coming year. Read More >

If recent statements from Ford Motor Company were any indication, you’d think we were living in some futuristic society where our grandparents drove Nucleons and the need for a personal vehicle was almost nil. Yes, too much “mobility” talk gets under the skin.

That said, it’s Ford’s domestic rivals who are actually building and fielding production vehicles that drive themselves — and setting up businesses and partnerships that could make the automakers a bundle on the side. By next year, both General Motors and Fiat Chrysler could have self-driving vehicles roaming America, earning their companies money.

Be our guest, Ford claims. There’s bigger things to worry about. Read More >

The long-abandoned — and recently reglazed — Michigan Central Station building will host a Ford sign and many Ford employees in the near future, the building’s longtime former owner claims.

Matthew Moroun, son of Detroit businessman Manuel “Matty” Moroun, told Crain’s Detroit Business on Monday that the family has sold the hulking, derelict building to Ford Motor Company as part of the automaker’s wide-ranging plan to take over much of the Corktown district. Read More >

We’ve prattled on before about how General Motors sees data mining as its next big business opportunity. While much of our take focused on the risk that customers might lose their privacy and become both commodity and consumer, it would be stupid to suggest it isn’t also a highly lucrative business strategy.

Social media outlets sell your personal information on a daily basis and other industries see potential in that. GM isn’t the only automaker jumping on the bandwagon, it’s simply the one with the most transparent blueprint.

Ford recently opened up about its own data strategy. The company previously announced large investments into data centers, stating its intent to equip 90 percent of its global fleet with modem connectivity by 2020. Ford Smart Mobility was also reorganized earlier this year, an effort that included the acquisition of two tech firms focused on transit data. The automaker split the group to focus on key areas: transportation data, marketing, tech development, and the management of previously established programs like FordPass and Chariot.

Ford obviously had a plan in the works for a while, but we didn’t know exactly what Ford’s execution would look like until now.  Read More >

Around Ford’s hundredth anniversary, heritage was all the rage. The company had already reintroduced the throwback Thunderbird and the Mustang was returning for the 2005 model year looking as close to the late-1960s units as possible. However, the corner piece of the company’s birthday cake was assuredly the GT40-inspired supercar the Blue Oval had in development.

Getting a little help from Carroll Shelby himself, Ford created the much-hyped car and offered it for sale in 2004 — with the left headlight reading “100” to celebrate the company’s centennial anniversary. Originally priced at $150,000, the first-generation Ford GT can easily go for twice as much on the secondhand market, with superior examples exceeding $500,000 at auction. With prices like that, you probably thought you’d never have an opportunity to own this particular piece of automotive history.

You would also be wrong, because there is a 2005 Ford GT for sale right now that nobody’s bidding on, and it carries an incredibly low reserve.  Read More >

If the Ford EcoSport was Elon Musk, there’d be a special online site created to champion the tarring and feathering of the writers at this publication. While we’re in agreement that the subcompact crossover space is a much-needed segment for Ford, especially given its plan to ditch conventional passenger cars, we question the automaker’s decision to bring the EcoSport here.

One of our readers wasn’t too thrilled with his experience behind the wheel, but we’ll all reserve final judgement until after we spend a week in one. There’s further reviews on the way. (Maybe it’ll hack our lives and our emotions.)

Having said that, the EcoSport, which saw its first ever U.S. deliveries in January, sees its monthly sales continue to climb. Much to the chagrin of a certain PEI resident, it seems Americans have taken to the thing.  Read More >

We’ll miss it when its gone. The Ford Fusion Sport debuted as a pleasant throwback to an era of attainable muscle, just as the passenger car death plunge got underway in earnest. By taking a sensible family sedan, stuffing it with the largest mill its engine bay could handle, sending a propshaft to the rear wheels, and upgrading the sedan’s wheels and suspension, Ford crafted a blistering bargain that easily handles the daily duties of modestly-sized families. It’s an unlikely blast.

But soon it’ll be dead and you can have an Edge ST instead.

As all Fusions prepare for the afterlife, Ford’s new trim and content strategy (less of the former, more of the latter) means prices are on the upswing for 2019. The greatest hike in the Fusion lineup is reserved for the Sport. Read More >

Ford’s upcoming heavy duty gasoline truck engine, codenamed “7X,” was believed to be a 7.0-liter V8 built with the express purpose of replacing the 6.8-liter Triton V10 and perhaps the 6.2-liter Boss V8.

While the program will indeed bear fruit at Ford’s Windsor Engine Plant next year, there’s a new report claiming the mill’s layout should stir memories of famous engines of yore. We’re talking a large displacement (7.3 liters), iron block, and pushrod valve actuation. Read More >

By the early 1980s, Ford needed a replacement for both the image-challenged and obsolete rear-wheel-drive Pinto and the minuscule, German-built Fiesta, and so a Detroitified distant cousin of the European Ford Escort came into being for the 1981 model year.

Here’s a rare ’81 sedan, photographed in a Northern California self-service wrecking yard. Read More >

Ford’s F-150 Raptor is one of the meanest off-roaders you can purchase from the factory and, for the 2019 model year, the automaker’s doing its part to further improve its trail worthiness. Instead of going for visual upgrades that might tempt impulsive shoppers, Ford is sticking with hardware and technology.

The 2019 Raptor will receive upgraded shocks, Recaro sport seats, and a new Trail Control system that allows the pickup to cruise through seriously rugged terrain at low speeds — allowing the driver to focus on steering, instead of maintaining momentum and traction. According to the manufacturer, the system automatically adjusts power and braking to each individual wheel and is functional up to speeds of 20 mph. It also works for hill ascent and descent, even on craggy landscapes.  Read More >

Today’s edition of Buy/Drive/Burn was inspired by our previous Question of the Day on hatchback crapwagons.

In the North American vehicle timeline, the fading days of the Personal Luxury Coupe (PLC) saw the rise of a different kind of two-door for the masses. Gone was the upright formal vinyl roof, opera lamps, and trunk. En vogue was a sporty fastback profile and a strut-supported liftgate. Attainable and economic sporty driving is the name of the game, and our front-drive trio was right in the heat of things in 1994.

Read More >

Ford’s upcoming “Mustang inspired” electric crossover, which appeared (or didn’t, really) in a video shown the Detroit auto show, stands to ride on a new architecture that doesn’t bring to mind either the Mustang or the Explorer.

While a new report doesn’t provide us with an OEM-sourced image of the 2020 crossover, which may carry the Mach 1 name, it gives as sense of what to expect in terms of size. Read More >

Ford’s all-electric performance crossover, bound for a 2020 debut, is a model without a definite name that remains shrouded in mystery. It isn’t known whether this supposedly “Mustang inspired” crossover (Ford’s claim) is at all different than the 300-mile crossover EV promised by Ford as part of its electrified vehicle push. They could be one and the same. Or, one is a go-fast variant of the other.

Right now, all we know is that Ford garnered plenty of backlash for calling the thing the Mach 1 at this year’s Detroit Auto Show, where the automaker released a video depicting an ominous storm swirling over the Motor City and a lightning strike melding an Explorer and Mustang into something new and unseen (Ford’s “Team Edison” offices in Corktown served as the birthplace of the new model).

For what it’s worth, there’s now a new description of the vehicle that’s sure to get your brain working. Read More >

Following the private sale of his Ford GT, superstar wrestler John Cena found himself looking down the barrel of the automaker’s legal team. Ford had publicized that the chosen recipients of the exclusive model were forbidden from selling it within the first two years of taking delivery. Cena was in breach of contract, or so it initially seemed.

Things became murky when the former “Doctor of Thuganomics” had his legal council point out that the dealer’s sales agreement included no such clause. The matter is now before the courts, with Ford seeking damages and Cena asking for dismissal.

Keeping that in mind, it’s more than a little surprising that another second-generation GT is being offered for sale just a few months later. The vehicle in question is number 48 out of 250 from the 2017 model year — and it’s currently up for auction in Indianapolis.  Read More >