Wednesday brought an expanded alliance between Ford Motor Company and Volkswagen, with the two auto giants inking a deal for the joint development and construction of a range of products.
Since last year’s tie-up, the desire among the two companies to use each other’s strengths to address gaps in the market has been well known, though today brought specifics. (Read More…)
Today’s Rare Ride comes from a time when the family wagon segment was alive and well and Ford was eager to use its brand new Fox platform on as many vehicles as possible.
Presenting the wood-clad Mercury Zephyr Villager wagon, from 1979.
In the compact crossover segment, at least, the sky’s the limit when it comes to choice. And making inroads into this enormously popular crowd is plug-in hybrid power — a feature added to two major players this year: the Ford Escape and Toyota RAV4.
As efficiency numbers trickle out, Ford is claiming victory over its rival, though which of the two models ultimately boasts the most appeal will be borne out in future sales figures. (Read More…)
You read yesterday how Ford Motor Company plans to keep its salaried workforce working from homes presumably overflowing with baking flour and yeast until September — a measure designed to combat spread of the novel coronavirus.
Ford’s Detroit rivals have shown themselves to be pretty much on the same page in terms of pandemic response, though one player has always seemed a little more eager to return to a normal existence than the others. (Read More…)
We told you earlier this week how the month of June brought changes to General Motors’ pandemic-era financing offers. No longer is the automaker tempting buyers with zero-percent, 84-month loans on nearly everything in its lineup.
Over at Ford, it seems the same strategy is underway… with one very notable exception. Whether or not you can actually benefit from it, however, remains a matter of location and persistence. (Read More…)
On Wednesday, Ford Motor Co. offered some clarity to salaried workers wondering just how much longer they’ll have to work from home. If you happen to be one of those individuals and missed the official announcement, we’d kindly ask you to take a seat and find something to bite down on so you don’t end up hurting yourself.
Citing ongoing safety concerns tied to the coronavirus pandemic, Ford has decided to keep salaried employees home until at least September — tacking an extra two months onto its earlier prediction. (Read More…)
To say there’s a groundswell of enthusiasm for the returning Ford Bronco would be an understatement. Bronco diehards have been champing at the bit for a taste of the resurrected model, which saw its debut and production start delayed by the industry-wide coronavirus shutdown. Hell, a low-mileage, four-speed ’79 example just sold for $64,500 on Bring a Trailer.
On Thursday, Ford revealed the off-roader will drop its camouflage next month. (Read More…)
Most examples of the popular first-generation Focus lived life as appliances. Use and abused, they filtered to the used car lots during the late 2000s alongside brethren like the Mercury Cougar and Jaguar S-Type. However, a select few were spared from such an ignominious fate by performance tuner Saleen. The Californian company took some new Foci and imbued them with extra performance.
Today’s Rare Ride is among the chosen — it’s the 2005 Saleen Focus.
Autonomous vehicle technology might not be a sexy topic for many some, but human-driven vehicles certainly are. One day we’ll gaze at steering wheels in a sterile museum with a mixture of animalistic hunger and soul-crushing depression.
Sure, Ford’s tie-up with Volkswagen includes self-driving technology (sourced from another tie-up, this one with Argo AI), but that’s only part of the agreement. Late last week, the two automakers moved forward on other projects that might be of interest to you. (Read More…)
U.S. self-driving startup Argo AI has completed a deal with Volkswagen AG on self-driving vehicle technology, fulfilling VW’s wishes for a secure and affordable source of gee-whiz gadgetry for future mobility solutions.
The deal, valued at $2.6 billion, will see VW fork over a cool billion while folding its Autonomous Intelligent Driving team into Argo AI’s operations. The automaker’s alliance partner, Ford, pledged $1 billion (over five years) to the startup in 2017, before last year’s tie-up with the German automaker. (Read More…)
There’s a production backlog to be made up for, and industry giants Ford and General Motors don’t want to ease up on the throttle.
Rather than schedule a normal amount of summer downtime for plants and their employees, both automakers plan to pare back their normal idle period for select plants, ensuring a healthy flow of product that’s only just now ramping up after two months offline. (Read More…)
You’d think that examples of the Ford Pinto and its Mercury-badged twin, the Bobcat, would have disappeared from the American junkyard ecosystem by now, given the cheapness of these cars and the decades of exploding-Pinto punchlines since “Pinto Madness” came out in 1977. No doubt due to the huge quantities sold during the Pinto/Bobcat’s 10-year production run (well over three million), such is not the case; I continue to find Pintos and Bobcats in junkyards to this day.
Here’s a light blue ’77 three-door Bobcat in a Northern California self-serve yard. (Read More…)
It’s the second time the Mach 1 moniker has returned from the grave. On Friday, Ford confirmed rumors of a retro resurrection, revealing that the newest Mustang Mach 1 will bow for 2021 as a limited-edition model geared for the track.
We’re not talking a Dodge Demon or Hellcat here. Instead, the Mach 1 leaves the Shelby GT500 alone as the brand’s performance pinnacle, preferring instead to secure its place as the best 5.0-liter Mustang one can buy. (Read More…)
The sudden arrival of summer in this writer’s neck of the woods had two beneficial impacts. First, I’m able to work shirtless and, secondly, I can be assured that the harsh sun and 90-plus degree temps will scrub the rona from my car’s interior just by leaving it parked outside all day. Helps lower the Lysol budget.
Of course, summer can be all too brief, and sometimes a person doesn’t have all day to wait for ambient heat to melt the lipid outer layer of your average coronavirus. Ford has a solution that, while not great for the environment, will at least bring peace of mind to law enforcement officers. (Read More…)
All the flash with only some of the dash — that basically sums up Ford’s 2020 Edge ST-Line, a midsize CUV that mimics the looks of the sport-focused ST but politely says “no thanks” to a hotter engine.
Orders opened today for the new addition to the oft-overlooked Edge family. It was the strange popularity of the Edge ST, which landed back in 2018, that prompted the minds in the Glass House to copy a trend that’s become all the rage among its import rivals. (Read More…)
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