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Ford, Toyota clean up in Best Car For The Money Awards

The U.S. News Best Cars for the Money Awards picks winners by looking at the average transaction price, five-year total cost of ownership, the regard a car has from the automotive press, reliability figures from J.D. Power and Associates and safety data from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration and the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety. The result, according to the magazine, is "the best combination of critical acclaim and long-term value."
Ford nabbed six of the 21 categories that received awards this year, the Focus, Fusion, Fusion Hybrid, Taurus, Escape and Edge getting trophies. Toyota and its Lexus and Scion sub-brands took another five, the Tacoma and Tundra owning the two categories given to pickup trucks. The other ten awards were split between Honda with three, Buick with two, and one each for Subaru, BMW, Hyundai, Chevrolet and Mazda.
Follow the link to see all the winners and read about why they were chosen.

2015 Ford Mustang GT road test ride-along

You've no doubt already pored over our first drive of the 2015 Ford Mustang, where author Jonathon Ramsey proclaimed that "this new car shames the old, redefines the model and gallops far ahead of anything else in the segment." And following Ramsey's first stint behind the wheel of Ford's new coupe, we sent him back out with another 'Stang to capture some of these same impressions over a backdrop of the car moving quickly along gorgeous California canyon roads.
But this also gave our author and editors time to read through the hundreds of comments left on that original Mustang review. You readers are indeed a vocal bunch, and one particular comment about how the automotive media is so willing to bash an outgoing car as soon as the new one arrives really caught our attention. In this video, Ramsey stands by his written text, saying the new Mustang is "massively better than the one it replaces," and in doing so, addresses your comments while providing more insight into just how good the Ford truly is.
We won't spoil the rest for you. Check out the feature video above, and as always, leave us your thoughts in the Comments section below.

Watch these Australian Ford and Holden muscle cars duke it out

Australia's Motoring has put together a little video on two of the great performance vehicles available down under - the Holden VF Commodore HSV GTS and the Ford Falcon FPV GT R-Spec. And while both FPV and the Falcon might be on their way out, there's still plenty of time for a little head-to-head comparison between the two.
The cars aren't all that well evenly matched, though. The Ford boasts a 5.0-liter, supercharged V8, which the Aussies measure out at 449 horsepower and 420 pound-feet of torque. The HSV, though, with its Corvette-derived, 6.2-liter, supercharged V8 is just too powerful - 576 hp and 545 lb-ft of torque.
Predictably, it doesn't end too well for the Ford. As the guys from Motoring point out, the new VF Commodore is just too new and too good, with its extra power and its adaptive dampers (GM's excellent MagnaRide). Interestingly, Motoring did point out that the Holden's electric steering is better than the Ford's hydraulic steering, which is a lot like a Porsche purist saying they prefer water-cooled engines to air cooled.