Eddie Bauer on 2040-cars

Auto blog

Detroit 3 small cars lay an egg in latest Consumer Reports reliability study

Consumer Reports has released its Annual Auto Reliability Survey and the results are, in a word, interesting. While we already covered the score-damaging effects of infotainment systems, there's another big angle to the data that's getting some attention - the utterly dismal scores of the Detroit Three's small car offerings.
The turbocharged Dodge Dart and Chevrolet Cruze, as well as the Ford Fiesta were their respective brands' lowest-scoring models, a stat that's made worse by the fact that the American automakers finished 25th, 21st and 23rd, respectively.
That's not acceptable for The Detroit Free Press' auto critic, Mark Phelan, who has penned a scathing critique of the D3's small car reliability scores, arguing that GM, Ford and Chrysler are "out of excuses."

Ford Mondeo with 1.5-liter EcoBoost debuts in China

Does the car above, posing fancifully in white, look familiar? Well, it should. Although it wears Mondeo badges in the form you see above for the Chinese market - as it does in Europe - the car is basically the same thing sold in the US as the Ford Fusion. Of course, it's what's under that shapely skin that counts.
Ford has chosen the Shanghai Motor Show as the venue with which to unveil its 1.5-liter EcoBoost four-cylinder engine. We'd heard about the engine before, but now we have a few performance estimates to share: 133 kW of power (about 178 horsepower) and 240 Nm of torque (about 177 pound-feet).
Those numbers pretty much confirm previous rumors indicating about 177 in each category, and it's right on par with what Ford's own 1.6-liter EcoBoost produces. Ford is claiming best-in-class fuel economy as well, but no specific figures have yet been provided. In any case, we'll surely have all the data soon enough, as the 1.5-liter mill is destined for the US Fusion in 2014.

J Mays retiring from Ford design, succeeded by Moray Callum

Ford's highly influential head of design, J Mays, has announced that he'll be retiring from his position after 33 years in the industry, 16 of which were at the Dearborn, MI-based company. Upon departure, he'll be succeeded as group vice president of design by Moray Callum. If that last name sounds familiar, yes, he's the brother of Jaguar's Ian Callum.
It's difficult to explain just how big of a role Mays had on not just Ford's design over the years, but on the entire industry. Before heading to Dearborn, Mays worked for Audi, BMW and then Volkswagen, where he was involved in concept cars that paved the way for design icons like the first-generation Audi TT and the Volkswagen New Beetle. As for his Ford resume, it's extensive.
Mays joined the company in 1997 as design director for Ford, Lincoln, Mercury and Mazda, as well as the Premier Automotive Group (Volvo, Land Rover, Jaguar and Aston Martin). He was heavily involved in the Ford Fusion, Focus, Fiesta, Taurus, F-150 and Mustang, while also contributing to concept cars like the Atlas, Evos, 427, Forty-Nine, Shelby GR-1, Lincoln MKZ and the MKC.