2011 Ford Transit Connect Cargo Van Custom Shelves 77k Texas Direct Auto on 2040-cars

Auto blog

Toyota hangs on to title of world's largest automaker for first half of 2013

General Motors and Ford can have all the success they please, but it doesn't seem like America's two largest manufacturers are going to topple Toyota in the first half of 2013. According to Reuters, Toyota moved 4.91 million vehicles in the first six months of 2013, representing a 1.1-percent drop from the same period in 2012.
GM is on the rise, though, with a four-percent increase in global sales, to 4.85 million. Volkswagen, still sitting in third, saw a 5.5-percent jump to 4.7 million vehicles in the first half of 2013.
If this pace continues for Toyota, it'll finish 2013 in the top sales spot for the second year in a row. The manufacturer fell to third, behind GM and VW, in 2011 after earthquakes and tsunamis ravaged its production capacity.

Would a Mustang-based Lincoln look like this?

Designer Josiah LaCalla has taken a stab at what a Ford Mustang-based Lincoln model might look like with the Continental Mark X1 concept. Make no mistake, Ford's luxury arm has made it abundantly clear that it won't be pursuing any new products outside of volume models, which means a flashy halo grand tourer like the one you see here isn't in the cards. LaColla used the Mercedes-Benz SLS AMG as a basis for his creation, which explains the long nose, but we certainly don't mind the idea of a rear-wheel drive Lincoln with a cabin pushed to the aft.
While we're dreaming, there's certainly nothing stopping us from imagining what's under that lengthy hood. We like the idea of the 5.8-liter supercharged V8 from the Shelby GT500 pushing the Mark X1 down the road, but how about something a little more inventive? Something like a high-revving, buttery V12 with enough torque to push the contraption well past 200 miles per hour. Dream a little dream, people.

Jay Leno's Garage goes eco with Ricardo HyBoost

"Now before you turn away, this is not another boring hybrid car thing..." Despite the slightly defensive introduction from Jay, the latest episode of Jay Leno's Garage is actually pretty fascinating. The Ricardo HyBoost is a 2009 Ford Focus that has had a 1.1-liter engine swapped in for the stock 2.0-liter four. That might not get you performance enthusiasts out there fired up, until, that is, you hear that the 1.1L is also fed by both a turbocharger and an electrically driven supercharger for an instant-on "torque-fill" effect. Sounds about right, considering that Ricardo engineering is part of the genius behind the McLaren P1.
Perhaps most exciting of all, the Ricardo folks say that the package should run somewhere in the neighborhood of $1,100. A sort of performance-hybrid that makes sense for the frugal driver and the enthusiast one, then. There's a lot more to the HyBoost, all of which can be seen in the video below.