2005 Ford F650 F750 Pickup Loaded! Cat Diesel Allison Automatic Only 67k Miles! on 2040-cars

Auto blog

Ford to announce Mulally retirement, Fields CEO as early as May 1

Ford CEO Alan Mulally may be about to announce his long-rumored retirement from the Blue Oval, according to a pair of insiders who spoke to Bloomberg. An official statement on the succession could arrive as soon as May 1. Chief Operating Officer Mark Fields is rumored to step up as the new CEO. The company is said to be readying the announcement soon to ensure an orderly transition of power, according to the insiders.
Mulally's retirement from Ford has been a hot topic for a while. He was seriously rumored last year to be leaving the automaker to take over as the CEO of Microsoft. The board even said at one point that it was okay with them if he stepped down early. However, the CEO maintained he would stay with the business through at least the end of 2014. Fields has been rumored as a frontrunner to take over the top spot at the company since he was promoted to COO.
For the moment, Ford isn't officially confirming any of these plans. "We don't comment on speculation. We do have succession plans in place for our key leadership. We take succession planning very seriously," said Susan Krusel, Ford Global News Manager, to Autoblog.

Chris Harris pits Fiesta ST against Mercedes G63 AMG in 0-60 battle... sort of

Vehicle performance tests are serious business, with reputations made or broken by things like braking distance, top speed, and lateral g-forces. King of the metrics, though, is the 0-60 run, which for unknown reasons has become the benchmark for what truly makes a car a performance machine.
Now, Chris Harris from Drive has turned the whole idea behind the sprint to 60 on its ear. Taking a new Ford Fiesta ST, Harris asks a simple question: would the ST be quicker to 60 on its own, or on a trailer being towed by a Mercedes-Benz G63 AMG?
It's a fair question, really. The Fiesta Harris tested hit 60 in 7.2 seconds on a slightly uphill section of runway. It should be noted that Harris quotes his ST at 182 horsepower, which is about 15 ponies less than what we're getting in the US, so these numbers might not hold up all that well against an American model. The G63 AMG, meanwhile, is a 536-horsepower monster, powered by a twin-turbo V8 that, able to propel the big SUV to 60 mph in just 5.2 seconds without towing a Fiesta.

Ford cuts 950 Russian jobs on weak demand

The Russian auto market, in decline for the past year and further hit by the declining value of the ruble and recent sanctions over its annexation of Crimea, has forced Ford to cut jobs and shifts at two of its joint venture plants there. Around 700 of the 2,700 total workers who build the Russian-market Focus and Mondeo will be cut at the plant in Vsevolozhsk, near St. Petersburg as it drops to a single production shift. A second plant about 700 miles away in Yelabuga, in the Tartarstan region, will lose 250 workers. That plant builds seven vehicles, including the Explorer, Kuga and Edge.
The Moscow Times says Ford has been especially hit by the market decline, the overall market losing 5.5 percent in 2013 compared to the year before, but Ford sales dropping 18 percent in 2013 year-on-year. This year isn't going any better, with The Blue Oval posting a 21-percent decline through the first two months of 2014. That's why, though the Yelabuga plant builds the CUVs that customers are moving into, even it is facing cuts.
The job cuts in Vsevolozhsk come on top four-week plant shutdown planned so that the paint and body shops can go to one shift. In a statement, the company said, "Ford Sollers remains absolutely committed to the Russian market and is confident it has the right product plan, people and assets to deliver long-term profitable growth."