Archive for July, 2009
Mustang is already the most successful single nameplate brand in professional racing history, but it hasn’t competed in NASCAR – until now.
Two weeks ago the new Ford Fiesta rally car tackled the treachery and challenge of the Pikes Peak International Hill Climb. Now on the eve of the start of X Games 15, an all-star driver trio are putting their Fiestas through two days of rigorous testing at an abandoned military base south of Los Angeles.
Ford Motor Company created a truly one-of-a-kind vehicle, the Mustang AV-X10 “Dearborn Doll,” to be sold at auction during the Experimental Aircraft Association (EAA) 2009 AirVenture Oshkosh, the world’s greatest aviation celebration. Ford is the exclusive automotive partner with EAA AirVenture Oshkosh and all of the proceeds from the sale will benefit the Young Eagles organization. EAA AirVenture Oshkosh will be held from July 27 to Aug. 2 at Wittman Regional Airport in Oshkosh, Wisconsin.
Ford Motor Credit Company reported net income of $413 million in the second quarter of 2009, an improvement of $1.8 billion from a net loss of $1.4 billion a year earlier. On a pre-tax basis, Ford Credit earned $646 million in the second quarter, compared with a loss of $2.4 billion in the previous year. Excluding the $2.1 billion impairment charge for operating leases in the second quarter of 2008, Ford Credit incurred a pre-tax loss of $294 million in the previous year. On a pre-tax basis, Ford Credit earned $610 million in the first half of 2009.
In today’s auto market, customers are getting more and more focused on getting a reliable vehicle. It would seem that the days of getting a new car every three to five years are gone (at least for the majority of the population), so quality studies and surveys about different vehicles are proving to be crucial in buyers’ decisions. And that’s good news for Ford because a recent study by J.D. Power and Associates marks the current lineup of Ford, Lincoln, and Mercury vehicles as one of the best ever.
The 2009 Ford Flex Was A Segment Leader In The Survey read more »
For many years, General Motors has been the number one auto manufacturer in the United States with a market share of about 20%. And for the past decade, Ford’s market share was shrinking, even though their F-150 has been the best-selling vehicle in America for the past few years running. This was not a reflection on the quality of vehicles from either company, but rather a result of scale. General Motors had a massive brand lineup and a larger dealer and advertising network than Ford, allowing them to move more cars off the lots. With the GM bankruptcy and Ford’s recent strong sales, though, that all looks to be changing.
The Best-Selling Vehicle In America read more »
Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and other such websites are seen as the future of online social interaction. After all, why engage in a prolonged, deep conversation when you can just hop on Twitter, type out a 140 character message. (That previous sentence was 123 characters). Okay, I’m showing my bias now, but anyway, the online social media phenomenon has not gone unnoticed by Ford, and they’ve launched the Fiesta Movement, a way to promote their new Fiesta model through these media. And it’s working pretty well; over the course of the past three months, they’ve racked up 1.8 million views on YouTube, over 270,000 photo views on Flickr (one of those was me, finding the pictures below), and 1.8 million Twitter impressions.
One of the “Fiesta Movement Agents” from Seattle read more »
Sales figures for the month of June have been released and, unsurprisingly, the Ford Motor Company has yet again increased their market share. Between the Ford, Lincoln, and Mercury brands, the company sold a total of 148,153 vehicles in June, representing a drop of 11% versus the sales numbers from June 2008. This decrease is currently the lowest reported drop of all major automakers. You know the economy is in rough shape when having the smallest sales drop makes you the best, but that’s just the way it is. read more »
In celebration of the Fourth of July, Roush Performance released some figures about just where the parts for their 2010 Roush Mustang come from. The Mustang isn’t entirely American made, but it does clock in at 86%, which, if you consider the growing trend towards globalization in the past few decades, is an incredibly high number. And, that 86% includes all of the stock Ford Mustang parts and the modifications made by Roush.
2010 Roush Mustang 427R read more »
A Mustang with a Viper’s 8.4-liter V10
Scott Vanderschoor is like a lot of people. He likes to spend his free time working on his Mustang and adding modifications. Unlike a lot of people, however, he takes this to a whole new level: dropping a twin-turbo 8.4-liter V10 engine from a Dodge Viper into a Mustang. As you can imagine, that is a tough task, as the Ford Mustang really wasn’t designed to have a 8.4-liter behemoth under the hood. One of the biggest projects for Vanderschoor was to move the entire firewall back a half foot in order to even get the engine into the engine compartment. Click through to see a video of this V10 monster, called the Sniper, roaring to life for the first time (well, idling to life, he needs to tune it first). read more »
