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Worried that Applebee's cornered the market on graven images of classic Ford vehicles? Fear not, for Ford will soon have 10,000 shots from its vast archives on Ford Images. Yet there's not a single photo of a Pinto yet. More »
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Ford had quite the display in Shanghai. They dropped an '09 Fiesta from the roof, ecoBoosted a Flex, showed off a Euro-Focus racer, the kinetic-designed Iosis Max Concept and had flying, leather-clad booth professionals. Rowr! More »
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People say "Detroit" deserves to fail. Maybe, but as you can tell by the map below of every manufacturing facility from the domestic automakers, they'll take pretty much the entire Midwest with 'em. More »
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Ford CEO Alan Mulally spoke with CNBC's Phil LeBeau today following the automaker's announcement of $129 million in third quarter loses and announced the company was ready to weather the storm and will continue to develop its product line — but would still love some o' that good ol' socialist government help. The message appears to be far cheerier than GM's announcement that it would be implementing big changes, though there's still some cause for concern. What's the difference? More »
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Ford has announced third quarter losses of $129 million after pre-tax losses of a total of $2.7 billion. These results are an improvement from the company's $380 million loss in the third quarter of last year. This news comes after a quarter ravaged by the twin problems of high gasoline prices and overall economic doldrums, but Ford's budget bright spot was a $2.3 billion reduction in retiree health care costs. So no layoffs, right? Not exactly. More »
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We wondered if Kirk Kerkorian wasn't just a little mad when he bought a 5.5% stake in Ford after selling his GM stock and unsuccessfully attempting to buy Chrysler. News that he's now bailing on his investment has some estimating that Kerkorian, who owns the primary stake in MGM Grand, lost upwards of $670 million on his gamble. The math below the jump. More »
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As part of the 100th anniversary of Ford's Model T — happening right no, this very year, the Dearborn automaker announced a design contest among university students to create a Model T for the new century. The mandate: Design a simple, lightweight, practical vehicle that would be priced under $7,000. Six universities were selected to participate, and the winners were Aachen University in Cologne, Germany and Deakin University in Melbourne, Australia, each of whom receive $25,000 in scholarship money for their respective programs. More about the designs after the jump. More »
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We've seen bits of evidence that Volvo's future powertrain strategy will incorporate both diesel engines and hybrid drivetrains, but Automotive News now provides more detail on Volvo's evolving propulsion plans. Larger sedans and SUVs will be targeted first, with their V8 engines replaced by a diesel five-cylinder engine powering the front wheels and an electric motor driving the rear wheels. Magnus Jonsson, Volvo's senior VP of R&D also said "a plug-in variant will come 'very quickly' after the initial hybrid arrives. While big Volvos will see major changes, smaller Volvos will also be receiving mileage-enhancing technologies. More »
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Remember how Ford used to claim the Ka was too small for American tastes? Well, it appears American tastes have sufficiently downsized, and Ford CEO Alan Mulally, during an interview on a local Detroit radio show, said an Americanized Ka has quite a few supporters in the halls of the Dearborn automaker. For those not familiar with the Ka (and since it's never been sold here, that may be many of you), the little city cruiser is about the same width as the old Kia-sourced Ford Aspire — remember the Aspire? — and roughly ten inches shorter. Fortunately, the new Fiat 500-based Ka is also rumored to be at least an order of magnitude more fun to drive, so we're looking forward to finally seeing one on these shores in something other than a James Bond flick. More »
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Ford is reporting a 34% drop in sales from the same period a year earlier within its core Ford/Lincoln/Mercury brands. Total sales were 116,734 for September 2008 versus over 175,361 during September 2007. The results make September the lowest sales month this year for Ford and the tenth consecutive month of declining sales. On a related note, Volvo, while not included in Ford's 34% drop, reported a nearly 52% decline in sales from September 2007. More numbers as they come in. More »
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Remember when Bill Ford Jr. played the hero as Ford CEO, declining a salary in favor of stock while the company was in the middle of its never-ending recovery? Well it seems Billy Jr. decided to cash in some of his chips the other day, to the tune of one million shares of good old "F." At a sale price between $5 and $5.10 per share, Junior will be grossing about $5.05 million. We have to wonder why exactly Billy chose now to sell, as Ford shares are near the bottom of a 52 week low and waaaay off its highs of over $37 when some of us started at the big blue oval back almost a decade ago. Maybe wee Willy knows something we don't know. But don't worry if you think he's getting short end of the stick on the stock sale, as he's still got more than five million shares to burn through before he's in the poor house. [Forbes] More »
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We've spent the morning checking out the leaked e-mail from Mark "Mullet" Fields to white-collar staff at Ford calling for another 15% reduction in costs associated with salaried work force. Yes, you heard that right — "costs associated with salaried work force." That doesn't mean a 15% cut in the salaried work force, but rather they'll seek some form of cost savings first. You know, the unimportant stuff like going from two-ply toilet paper to one-ply, air conditioning limited from two hours a day to one, further cutting the number of subscriptions to Automotive News and limiting corporate jet use. OK, we don't think that's really going to happen. Mostly because they've already done that. What this more than likely this means is that if you work at the big blue oval (still), look for suspension of the popular U.S. Salaried Tuition Assistance Program, the Salaried Dependent Scholarship Program and other useless perks. There may even be some salary cuts to go along with them. That's not to say there won't be job cuts, oh no. If those leaked rumors we'd heard from the meeting with Jim Farley are to be believed, there may be a 10-12% cut in salaried staff. If that's the case then they're only talking about a 3-5% cut in "other cuts." Gulp. Happy Friday. Full leaked e-mail below the jump. More »
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Kirk Kerkorian's Tracinda Corp is planning to add 20 million shares to its current pile of 100 million Ford Motor Company shares and is willing to pay $8.50 per share to do it. Trancinda made the announcement this morning to which Ford has responded with a "thanks for the vote of confidence" style statement. Seems KirkKerk is going for an automaker trifecta after past activities like buying a major portion of GM (then selling it), trying to buy all of Chrysler (and losing), and now getting into the 5.5% ownership range of Ford. Apparently falling market share but improving profit trends creates a mixed message that Tracinda is willing to stake a little coin on this quarter. [Reuters] More »
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It's taken 12 months of steady declines (strategic withdrawals) before Mark Fields could claim a victory in sales, by selling 182,951 cars in November. That's a whopping 0.4% increase over November 2006. Most surprisingly, the refreshed and SYNC-ed Ford Focus realized growth of 18% compared with last year. Sales of crossovers were up 119% compared with last year, thanks to the support of the Edge and MKX. How much of this is SYNC actually propelling sales or just a reflection of how poor things were last November is uncertain, but it's a bit of good news for the automaker. Press release below the jump More »
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The Times UK reports Ford Motor Company is indeed pondering the sale of Volvo, further chipping away at the legacy of former boss Jacques "Jac the Knife" Nasser. (The Associated Press assigns a detail-free, "no comment" quote to a Ford spokesman.) Analysts value the Swedes at about $8 billion — 20 percent more than Ford bought it for in 1999. Sure, it'll be an influx of much-needed cash, but at what long-term cost? Volvo's a shining star in Ford's Premier Auto Group constellation. No bidders named yet, but expect breathless coverage as the the story develops. [via Times Online] More »
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Fans of black Ford sedans, unisex hair styles, scenic Pacific vistas, and cheesy dialog, will be ecstatic to hear that the entire 1968 first season of television's finest Hawaiian cop drama is at long last available on DVD. While this news was first reported months ago, getting the discs onto the shelves was evidently about as an impossible task as McGarrett telling Danno to check every tire dealership on the island, or everyone that's eaten breakfast at the Honolulu International House of Pancakes since 1966. For those who feel like getting plastered, we have included a link to the rules for the Hawaii Five-O drinking game. Watch for flying hubcaps during chase scenes. – Mike Bumbeck More »
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