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For the first time in four years, Ford Motor Company has posted a profit for the year 2009, to the tune of $2.7B. Climbing its way back from a record loss of $14B in 2008, Ford's stunning recovery act is all the more remarkable given the pain that its rivals GM and especially Chrysler are still feeling. Furthermore, this week sees Toyota, a company whose techniques Ford CEO Alan Mullaly studied and applied as the number 2 at Boeing as well as at Ford, is reeling from a devastating outfall of a global recall caused by sticking gas ...

J.D. Power has released its 2009 Sales Satisfaction Index (SSI) Study, which rates Jaguar as the highest-ranked luxury vehicle and Mercury as the top mass-market make. The index focuses on the new-vehicle purchase experience, as defined by dealership facility, salesperson, paperwork and financing process, delivery process, and vehicle price. The survey highlights dealer salespeople's improved quality, no doubt spurred by the need to be extra attentive to car buyers in a down car market.

"In this difficult economy, dealerships are working particularly hard to close sales, but need to be attentive to customers without exerting unwanted sales pressure ...

No doubt spurred on by the newer and hot-selling Chevrolet Camaro, Ford has made a major improvement to the base Mustang for 2011. The upgrade in question comes in the form of a new, efficient 3.7LV6 producing 305 hp and 280 lb-ft. of torque.

On the face of it, this news should not be that remarkable, especially for a sports car. But compare these figures with the outgoing base engine: 4.0L V6 putting out only 210 hp and 240 lb-ft. of torque. The new V6 betters the base Camaro by one horsepower, and when mated with a new ...

Fresh from winning MotorTrend’s Car of the Year award with the Fusion, Ford Motor Company received more good news today. In the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety’s (IIHS) annual Top Safety Picks test, Ford leads the list with six vehicles, including four models from its Swedish subsidiary Volvo. Subaru and Volkswagen/Audi came in second with five vehicles each. Troubled Chrysler was third with four models on the list.

The bigger new, perhaps, concerns a company whose vehicles did not make the cut: Toyota. While Toyota and its Lexus and Scion brands were named for 11 safety picks ...

This is a big day for Ford, currently the healthiest American car company. During the first live broadcast of its coveted and prestigious Car of the Year Award, MotorTrend has named the Ford Fusion its 2010 Car of the Year.

Ford’s achievement is noteworthy, especially when you consider the state of affairs in Detroit as well as the stiff competition it faced (including stable mates the Mustang and Taurus). The Blue Oval has dramatically improved the quality of its cars amid the recession and invested in fresh interior and exterior styling. The Fusion is offered with four cylinder, V6 ...

Renaultsport Megane 250 v Ford Focus RS: that is a comparison test you will not find in the pages of any American car magazine. These two hot-hatches are great European products that we cannot buy in the US. That, however, does not prevent us from enjoying a quick skirmish between the two on a wonderful Spanish mountain road.

The Ford Focus RS has already been praised by European motoring journalists for its mix of fun handling, performance and affordability. These days, it is THE benchmark hatchback fun mobile in the European market. Renault, which is mostly well-known for making fogettable ...

America’s favorite truck, the F-150, now has a mean brother: the Ford F-150 SVT Raptor. And no, this is not some badge-engineered marketing exercise on the part of Ford’s Special Vehicle Team. The Raptor is a serious off-roader certified for road use.

Powered by Ford’s venerable workhorse, the 310 hp, 5.4L V8, the Raptor rides on 35-inch BFGoodrich All-Terrain tires wrapped around menacing black wheels. Ford has struck a partnership with California-based Fox Racing Shox, which manufactures dampers for motocross bikes, off-road racing vehicles and military vehicles. Fox supplied the specially-designed shock system for the Raptor ...

You might already know that Ford attempt to set a new record at Pikes Peak ended with driver Andrea Eriksson crashing his car during practice (the videos are included below). But now you can watch former WRC champion Marcus Gronholm complete the climb aboard a mad, 800 hp version of the very car we reviewed a few months ago.

Make sure to watch the video in its full high-definition splendor here - Thanks to Yaroukh for the link!

By the way, if the above video reminds you of something, you might be thinking of the unequalled original Pike Peak film Climb ...

Those of you interested in good bang-for-the-buck sporty sedans should like this one. In this technical, no-BS video, Edmunds pitches the Ford Taurus SHO against the Infiniti G37 sedan. As you will see, the two cars are pretty evenly matched, but we will let you discover which one consistently beats the other one in every category despite being cheaper.

Infiniti G37:
Engine: 3.7L V6
Horsepower: 328 hp @ 7,000 rpm
Torque: 269 lb-ft @ 5,200 rpm
Transmission: 7-speed automatic or 6-speed manual
Price: starting at $33,250

Ford Taurus SHO:
Engine: 3.5L V6 Ecoboost
Horsepower: 365 hp@ 5550 ...

And here's our home country's list. American automotive journalists will be voting fro the following cars and trucks for the 2010 North American Car/Truck of the Year awards, respectively. Last year, the impressive Hyundai Genesis took the car award, while the venerable Ford F-150 took home the truck award.

As you can see below, BMW and Ford have a remarkable four cars each spread across both categories! Ford actually beats BMW if you count the Lincoln MKT, which is in fact a Ford (does Ford really want to admit to that, though?!)

Candidates for the 2010 North ...

And you thought the Camaro in Transformers was cool: the Dodge Vapor (that is one hell of a cool name) and Ford X-1 you see here have been commissioned by the US Air Force as recruiting tools for young Americans. And no, you are not being punk'd!

While we doubt either of these vehicles will ever be used in combat - even though we can imagine young enemy combatants dropping their guns in awe when these cars roll into town - the Air Force has seen it fit to equip the Vapor with radar-absorbing paint, carbon fiber wheels, and a 360 ...

Last week, we introduced you to the 2009 Ford Fiesta in part 1 of our two-part review. This week, we bring you my reaction from behind the wheel as I drove Jill Hanner's Fiesta around the streets of Brooklyn and on the BQE freeway. My time with the car on camera was limited, so I will elaborate on what I thought of the car here. For those of you who are watching our reviews for the first time, we have included the rightpedal rating scale below as a reference.

Having read about the Fiesta before I drove it, I ...

We present to you the hottest Ford you cannot yet buy: the 2009 Ford Fiesta. If you read car blogs, you will know that Ford is preparing to import this heretofore European model to the US in 2010 as a 2011 car.

In what has justifiably been called a great exercise in social marketing, Ford is preparing our market through the Fiesta Movement program. The idea is simple: lend a Fiesta to 100 leading influential bloggers around the US for six months and ask them to share their experiences with the car.

Our friend Jill Hanner was kind enough to ...

We are a few weeks out from the end of the 2009 NY Auto Show, but we saved an in-depth, uninterrupted interview for those of you who think about the state of the US car industry night and day.  We caught up with Todd Lassa, Detroit Editor for MotorTrend, a dear friend to rightpedal, and one of the most respected automotive journalists in the country in order to discuss the state in which Detroit finds itself.

While so many profess to know what Detroit’s problems have been, few have the breadth of insight that Todd brings to the discussion ...

Alas, all good things must come to an end. In the final portion of our coverage of the 2009 NY Auto Show, we get up close and personal with the Ford Taurus SHO, about which we wrote here, wonder aloud about what the Chevy Volt means to GM, and give you our impressions of the general scene at the show against the backdrop of the current state of the US car industry.

Over the next several days, we plan to bring you full-length versions of a few of the interviews interspersed among our four-part series. So stay tuned!

The 2009 Brand Image Awards by Kelley Blue Book has named BMW the ‘coolest’ car brand, as well as the ‘best performance brand’ and ‘best exterior design brand’. Its arch-rival Mercedes-Benz, was voted as the ‘best prestige brand’.

The full results are as follows:

BMW: coolest
BMW: best performance
BMW: best exterior design - luxury
Cadillac: best comfort
Cadillac: best interior design
Ford: most rugged truck
Mercedez-Benz: most prestige
Nissan: best exterior design – non-luxury
Toyota: best value
Toyota: Most family

So, the question is, which would you rather be: cool, or prestigious? Do you agree with the other awards? Leave your ...

Bonjour from Geneva!

Right now, the US auto industry needs change, change we can believe in. Enter Ford’s ‘Iosis Max’ concept car that they are currently showing around.

There are no major technical innovations or gizmos (though I think it looks beautiful) and the car is pretty close to the new global Focus that Ford will unleash next year (let’s hope production versions aren’t toned down by the grey suits in accounting).

So why is this important? Well, for the first time in ten years, the US will get largely the same Focus that Europe gets. This ...

Aahhh….it’s so nice to see Ford making all the right moves of late. There was the updated, 2010 Mustang Shelby GT500 at the LA Auto Show, the profitable year the company had in Europe, and now this: yesterday at the Chicago Auto Show, Ford unveiled the 2010 Ford Taurus SHO.

While the original, cult-classic SHO (which stands for Super High Output) had a magical Yamaha-built V6 that could rev to 8000rpm, the new iteration does with Ford’s twin-turbocharged, 365HP EcoBoost V6. The driveline consists of a SelectShift 6-speed automatic, replete with steering wheel-mounted shifters, and a torque-sensing ...

Yesterday, an interesting and demonstrative “social media” thing happened. I got an alert that a certain Scott Monty was following the rightpedal tweets, so I checked to see who it was, and it turns out, Scott Monty runs social media for Ford. I now follow him as I like the fact that Ford is demonstrating its grasp of the social media scene and is actively conversing with customers. Perhaps it is because of these types of efforts that at number 12, Ford is the highest-ranked car company on AdAge’s list of “The Most Social Brands of 2008” (you will ...

As a former automotive engineer who spent years working in and around Detroit and a life-long car enthusiast, I take great interest in the state of the global automotive industry and the issues it is facing. As an American, I am concerned by the difficult state in which the US automotive industry finds itself. You see, I do not want to see it fall apart and care what happens to it, even if I think the manufacturers are largely to blame for their own troubles. For too long, they ignored the simple rule of good commerce: building great products. Legacy ...

I came across an interesting AdAge interview with Mark Fields, Ford's President of the Americas, which touches on Ford's efforts to integrate people's social networking needs into the car (the video of the interview can be found here). While the jury's still out on whether there will be a voice-activated Twitter API in your next, all-new Ford Taurus, it is nice to see car companies trying to stay hip to current media trends. Check out Ford's SyncMyRide site.

[Source: AdAge free subscription]