Struggling for decades, Marcos Engineering produced very few examples of its flagship GT model. This excellent condition restored example recently made its way up onto the eBay auction block, which presents a good opportunity to take a look at this stylish British sports car.
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Tag: Ford
Perhaps more than any other vehicle component, a steering wheel must function properly for the safe operation of a car or truck. Without it, you’re just along for the ride.
That’s why the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration is taking three reports of steering wheels detaching from the column in late-model Ford Fusions so seriously. In one case, the wheel came off in the driver’s hands. The agency has now opened a preliminary investigation into three model years of the Fusion. (Read More…)
An “army” of lobbyists has come to Capitol Hill. American automakers are “speaking with a unified voice” in pursuit of a single goal. The business media and papers of record are pushing a message that hasn’t been this identical since this time last year, when they were competing with each other to see who could most strongly support a certain inevitable presidency.
What’s got everybody so upset?
Ford Motor Company’s eagerness to quench North America’s insatiable thirst for light-duty pickups and SUVs drove the company to earn $1.6 billion in the third-quarter of 2017, according to an earnings report from Ford.
Also helping boost the automaker’s bottom line were some tasty foreign tax credits and an accountant’s best friend: cost reductions.
Think of the Ford F-150 pickup and one’s mind immediately turns to an excellent pair of EcoBoost V6 engines with 2.7 and 3.5 liters of displacement. And why wouldn’t you? Together, Ford’s twin-turbocharged V6 twins make up three-quarters of the model’s engine share. These beauties are the last word in full-size pickup torque, though the 2.7-liter is a wanderer that finds deserving homes in such models as the Ford Edge, Lincoln MKX, and Ford Fusion Sport.
For 2018, both EcoBoost engines see some refinements, but buyers of F-150 XL and XLT pickups won’t see either if they leave those option boxes unchecked. In a bid to increase fuel efficiency across the lineup, 2018 sees the introduction of a naturally aspirated 3.3-liter V6 in low-rung trims, replacing the previous 3.5-liter unit.
There’s no shortage of technology at work with the new 3.3, but it can’t match the fuel economy of the closest available engine upgrade. (Read More…)
I knew I was borked the minute the truck started down the incline.
Even a Ford Raptor is no match for fresh, gray mud that looks like wet cement. Illinois mud may not be Alabama mud, but it’s no joke. And I had just attempted to drive a Raptor through just that sort of mud, mud that was puddled at the bottom of sharply angled incline that had a distance of a few feet from top to bottom.
The thing is, when one is about to hit a mud hole, the best thing to do, usually, is to give it as much throttle as you can to maintain momentum (but not so much as to fling yourself into a tree). However, I came in a little too hot, bounced, and lost momentum when I reacted to the bounce by not digging into the throttle.
And that, friends, is how you stick one of the world’s most off-road-ready production vehicles in the mud. Also, it’s a good way to expose yourself to social media ridicule, as smartphone-wielding park guests, already happy to see a Raptor on the trail, surround you. Apparently, the woods aren’t free from 4G LTE.
From the most malaisey part of the late 1970s comes a model which would have been a Rare Ride sooner, had your author known about it. It’s a little Pontiac two-door wagon with sporting pretensions.
What awaits you is a Pontiac Sunbird Safari Wagon from 1978. Prepare your polyester jacket.
Long before Dodge would apply the Durango name to its midsize SUV offering, Ford used it on a very limited production pickup as it considered a replacement for the Ranchero.
Come and check out a beige, two-tone, Ford Fairmont Futura Hack-job Durango pickup.
The Ford Mustang sports a snazzy new set of duds for 2018 but, with the GT350 largely unchanged for 2018 and the GT500 still just a rumor, Ford is looking to generate extra buzz in the high-performance end of the stable.
Fortunately, it seems the Blue Oval has a team of gearheads willing to burn the midnight octane in order to provide something new for Mustang customers who count themselves squarely amongst the go-fast set.
Earlier this week I was presented with a little advertising to enjoy, via Facebook and courtesy of Nissan. The ad is part of a new campaign launched on October 14th. In it, Nissan throws a couple of strangers together in a predicament involving the Nissan Titan XD and a previous-generation (debadged) Ford F-150.
I’m not impressed.
If you’re new around here, you might not be aware that I’ve been accused of being a Blue Oval homer, or even being “bias.” (Bark’s tip of the day: “bias” is a noun, “biased” is an adjective.) I make no secret of the fact that the last four vehicles I’ve purchased have been straight from the Mind of Dearborn, but I don’t think that necessarily makes me FordPro Bark. In fact, some of my harshest rental reviews of days yonder have been directed toward Ford products.
But there can be no denying that I’m drawn toward Fords on rental row, simply because I have a large degree of familiarity with them. I don’t have to learn new infotainment systems or dash layouts, and everything from the steering wheel to the seats just feels right to me. As such, I found myself throwing my bags into the cargo area of a Ford Edge Titanium last week in Miami. The Edge is a resident of that strangest of vehicle segments, the large two-row CUV, living on the same street as the Jeep Grand Cherokee and Nissan Murano. The Edge can’t have a third row of seating, because then it would be an Explorer, and it can’t be any smaller, because then it would be an Escape. So it just kinda…exists.
This isn’t necessarily a bad thing. (Read More…)
Cargo covers only hide so much. And at the end of the day, your SUV’s cargo area is merely a receptacle for refuse — you can’t tote the contents around outside the vehicle without a stolen shopping cart.
If a patent application filed by Ford Motor Company bears fruit, your cargo hold will have everything you need for tailgate parties, camping trips, and, just maybe, a long wait at the border. (Read More…)
Those Ford Mustang owners. Obsessed with just one thing — a feverish, burning desire to consume as little gasoline as possible.
No, that can’t be right. Mustang buyers know what they want when purchasing the original pony car, and it usually involves the velocity of wind through one’s hair. Ford Motor Company, however, doesn’t have the luxury of such simple-mindedness. For a number of reasons, the largest of them being regulatory, the automaker requires its newest vehicles to burn less fuel than the previous generation.
The 2018 Mustang is no different. For the coming model year, the massaged and freshened Mustang promises owners less time spent at the gas pump. (Read More…)
Ford is a bit late to the micro SUV party, with trucklets like the Kia Soul and Chevrolet Trax hoovering up sales while the Blue Oval dawdles in getting its EcoSport to market. Finally, it appears for the 2018 model year.
By the way, even if there seems to be a couple of ways to pronounce the name of this little rig, Ford vigorously prefers we say “Echo-Sport” and not “Eek-Oh-Sport.” The company’s completely serious, despite beating us over the head for years with ads for the identically-prefixed “Eek-Oh-Boost” engines. Very good, then.
With the build-and-price tool for the EcoSport going live not long ago, let’s gander at the cheapest soft-roader in Ford’s showroom.
After introducing the Super Duty in 1998, Ford kept making upgrades to the same basic cab and frame all the way up to 2016. Multiple refreshes across three generations could not hide the fact that this truck rode on old bones, making the 2017 model year redesign a welcome change.
We had a chance test out the new design by borrowing a 2017 F-350 Platinum for a recent trip to West Virginia, which appropriately featured a Miata on trailer behind us. While our race car and trailer combo only made up a fraction of the maximum towing capacity of the diesel-powered behemoth, it gave us an appreciation of having a little extra room while towing.
Our schedule said we had to be on track at Summit Point for a drivers meeting at 8 a.m. on Saturday morning, so we tried to pack as much as possible before the Super Duty arrived in order to hit the road quickly. When the truck arrived on Friday afternoon we ran over to the U-Haul store to pick up a trailer. Hooking up was a breeze — even in the tight confines of the back lot — as the backup camera, along with the birds eye view, quickly got us lined up with the trailer and on our way to load the race car. (Read More…)
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