“Idiot-proof” is a little harsh. Maybe “Idiot-helping.”

Ford on Monday announced that the Focus RS would sport 350 horsepower and 350 pound-feet of torque — up from 345 and 324 respectively — and have a “stall recovery” feature that restarts the car if you’re a beginner with three pedals in a $36,000 hot hatchback.

The feature is an evolution of start-stop technology, according to Ford. If a driver stalls the Focus RS at a light, the engine will start itself by pressing the clutch again — without shifting into neutral. We asked a Ford spokesman if the feature could be disabled — similar to start-stop in other cars — for situations such as push-starting, but didn’t immediately hear back.  (Read More…)

After starting in Barrow, the northernmost settlement in the United States, our second stop takes us 200 miles (320 km) south east to Prudhoe Bay, again on the Arctic Ocean.

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A late-night deal reached between Ford and Kansas City, Missouri auto workers averted a strike over the weekend.

United Auto Workers Vice President Jimmy Settles in a letter to workers said negotiators reached an agreement late Friday night.

As you know, earlier this week, I gave Ford Motor Company 120-hour notice of our intention to strike at the Kansas City facility if a tentative agreement for their local contract could not be reached. Thankfully, with this evenings (sic) announcement, that action has been averted.

The UAW hasn’t yet announced if it will shift its focus to negotiations with Ford after a majority of Fiat Chrysler Automobiles union workers rejected their proposed deal with the automaker.  (Read More…)

Last year, I crossed the United States from Coast to Coast — New York to LA — in a Ram 1500 Tradesman. You can follow last year’s coverage here. This year we embark on another crossing, this time from North to South, albeit starting a little further North than you might expect.

I’ll hop in a Ram 2500 Tradesman 4×4 in Seattle eventually, but for now, as the area I’ll travel through before Seattle has only an intermittent road network, it will be a mix of planes, rental cars and ferries. (Read More…)

Back in the early 1990s, the elite members of the Detroit Big Three were trying hard to compete on price with dirt-cheap imported Misery Boxes such as the Subaru Justy, Hyundai Excel, and Toyota Tercel EZ. They came up with stripper versions of their low-end subcompacts (e.g., the Plymouth Sundance America), which few bought. Why buy an Escort Pony for $7,976 when you could have a zero-option ’91 Civic for $7,095, and still be driving the Civic (very slowly, and maybe on its third head gasket) today? This makes the Escort Pony a very rare Junkyard Find today, so I grabbed my camera when I saw this one at a Denver yard. (Read More…)

A researcher from Leeds University says that at least four other automakers’ cars are polluting above the legal limits for Europe, including Ford, BMW, Mazda and Mercedes-Benz, the Daily Mail reported.

James Tate, a researcher and lecturer at the university measured over 300 new cars to comply with new Euro 6 diesel emissions standards. According to Tate, Mazda’s diesel engines, on average, emitted more than six times the European limit for nitrogen oxide emissions in new cars. Ford’s cars may have polluted more, but Tate said the automaker’s sample size was too small to tell.

According to the report, Tate used a roadside sniffer for testing in the UK, similar to ones used in the United States.

“This research shows that building cars so they perform well in laboratory emissions tests but emit high amounts of NOx in real urban driving is an endemic practice across the industry,” Tate said, according to the Daily Mail. “There is very little known about how the manufacturers conduct their tests because they take place behind closed doors.”

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While working on a story about some very old cars, I stumbled upon something relevant to the latest big story in the automotive world.

I ran into a Model T collector who’s also a powertrain engineer for Ford. Seizing the opportunity, I asked him if he could tell me what he was working on (sometimes they say no). He said that he was responsible for developing computerized engine controls. Because of that expertise, I started to ask him some questions about the software program that Volkswagen apparently used to cheat on the EPA’s diesel emissions testing.

What he was willing to say and what he wouldn’t say intrigued me. (Read More…)

Mark writes:

Sajeev,

Thanks for the recent advice on winter tires & wheels for my new Focus ST. I took delivery of the car two weeks ago and I’m having a blast. The first thing I did when I got it home was take Bark M’s advice and sign up for the Octane Academy.

So here’s another question: What’s your take on fuel octane and the ST?

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United Auto Workers at the Kansas City, Missouri plant that produces Ford F-150s may strike as early as Sunday if the automaker doesn’t “negotiate in good faith,” according to Jimmy Settles, UAW vice president:

The challenges we face may not be easy, and I certainly cannot predict the future, but I would rather die fighting than to do an injustice to this membership or our institution.

Settles wrote to union members that issues such as “manpower provisions, the national heat stress program, and skilled trades scheduling amongst others” prompted the threatened strike at the Kansas City plant.
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Mark’s look today at a couple of late Sixties’ performance icons has inspired me. Yes, my automotive ADD kicked in and off I went to eBay in search of affordable Cutlass and Mustang projects.

And, really, I’m still searching. The majority of what I’ve found are either total basketcases, poorly-done “customs,” or pristine show cars with prices to match. I’d love to find a car that has needs, but could be driven away and worked on over time.

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Confession time: I’ve never driven a car built before the 1980s.

Actually, scratch that. I may have driven a car built before the ’80s — likely late ’70s — but it wasn’t memorable enough for me to actually, well, remember.

Thankfully, my hobby-turned-career has afforded certain pleasures, such as driving two incredible examples of what Detroit had to offer the buying public more than 40 years ago.

It was time to right my dark secret. These two cars — a 1968 Ford Mustang GT and an Oldsmobile Cutlass S of the same vintage — would allow me to do just that.

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There was a time when a 1/2-ton pickup could haul around 1,000 pounds of payload and a 1-ton truck was good for around 2,000 pounds. Twenty years ago a good tow rating for a 1/2 ton truck was 7,500 pounds and 1-ton trucks were used by ranchers for hauling 14,000 pound cattle trailers around. Today things are different.

Now we have a Ford F-150 that can tow over 12,000 pounds and haul 3,300 pounds in the bed without batting an eye. In this world, we have 3/4- and 1-ton trucks boasting towing abilities that would have required a Class 5 medium-duty truck in the 1990s. It’s in this world that the F-350, F-450 and Ram 3500 now exist.

These trucks have pushed the envelope, boasting towing capabilities that 99 percent of pickup truck shoppers can’t even legally test. With massive turbodiesel torque figures, Ford and Chrysler’s latest trucks can tow 21,000 pounds more than my plain-old California Class C license allows. With the 2017 Ford Super Duty on the horizon sporting more aluminum than an Alcoa factory and Chrysler nearing the sale of their re-tweaked Cummins engine and its 900 lb-ft of torque, let’s deep-dive into the Super Duty you can buy now.

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Ford on Thursday rolled out its newest Super Duty truck — 350 pounds lighter than the outgoing model — complete with aluminum-alloy body, high-strength steel frame and new 6-speed transmission for its V-8 engine.

According to Ford, the truck’s frame is up to 24 times stiffer than the outgoing frame, and the company reportedly used high-strength, military-grade aluminum alloys — which are separate from civilian grade because they use more of it before 9 a.m. than we’ll use all day. Or something.

The Super Duty truck can be fitted with either a 6.7-liter V-8 turbocharged diesel, a 6.8-liter V-10 gasoline or 6.2-liter V-8 gasoline engine, with the latter being mated to a new TorqShift-G six-speed transmission.  (Read More…)

Last Wednesday morning, I received an email about an upcoming event in Portland, Ore. held by classic car insurer Hagerty. Fifty teens and young adults between the ages of 15 and 25 would get to drive a handful of classic and vintage cars and trucks around a marked course. All of the vehicles available would have one thing in common: a manual transmission.

Furthermore, I, too, could participate in learning the art of the manual transmission, having acquired my permit the day before the press release entered my inbox.

All I had to do was head down to Portland Meadows — where thoroughbreds are the dominant form of horsepower between October and February — on Saturday.

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Our coverage of the sweet, sweet, sweet deal that is the Nissan Leaf (in Colorado, at least) won’t be overlooked by one blue-oval automaker.

At least for this month, Ford is leasing its 2015 C-Max Energi plug-in hybrid for $159 a month for 36 months with $2,689 down at signing (after $2,750 cash back). The lease covers 10,500 miles a year. That may not be the screaming deal that the Leaf is, especially considering its term, but really — how long would you keep a 2015 electric-ish car anyway?
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