2004 Ford F150 4x4 Ext Cab on 2040-cars

Auto blog

Autoblog Video: Looking back on the 1965 Shelby GT350

The first Shelby GT350 Mustang came out a year after the first Ford Mustang, a collaboration between the carmaker and Carroll Shelby bent on making the Mustang a race winner. Perhaps even better than the car is Shelby's story behind its creation, when Ford chairman Lee Iaccoca gave him the "impossible job" of turning "a secretary's car... into a sports car." Shelby and his cohorts got that job done immediately, taking three SCCA B-Class national championships. The latest Ford Shelby GT350 is coming a year after the latest Mustang's debut, and it's certainly got the specs on paper to look like a track monster, especially in GT350R form. This year the Rolex Monterey Motorsports Reunion celebrated the 50th anniversary of the Shelby GT350 Mustang, and the Pebble Beach Concours D'Elegance featured the car in a special category. We took the opportunity to look at what makes the old GT350 so special, and why the new one stays true to the legendary name. Check it out in the video above. Related Video:

Ford doubling 1.0L EcoBoost engine production

Ford's 1.0-liter EcoBoost three-cylinder engine hasn't been around that long, but it sounds like the engine is getting to be fairly popular in the automaker's global car lineup. The Detroit News is reporting that Ford has add a second shift that will allow its German engine plant to double daily output from 500 engines to 1,000.
The increased capacity is part of a plan to sell more than 300,000 vehicles a year with this engine in Europe by 2015. Europe is currently the only market where the smallest of the EcoBoost engines is offered (including in the Focus pictured above), but US-spec Fiesta models will be getting this mill for 2014.
Three-cylinder engines are expected to continue to grow in popularity in coming years with the report indicating that global production of these engines will double by 2018 to 9.8 million units. General Motors, BMW and Mitsubishi are all expected to introduce three-cylinder engines in the near term, as well.

How Ford plans to handle insurance and repair questions surrounding new aluminum-bodied F-150

Building a car out of aluminum has a number of benefits - the lighter weight allows the vehicle to be more agile, more fuel efficient, make better use of its power and be more resistant to dings and dents. The downside to the advanced construction, though, is that repairs are both challenging and expensive. That's troubling for the new, aluminum-bodied Ford F-150, because it's kind of made a name for itself as a rugged, durable work vehicle.
How will the legions of Ford buyers cope when it comes time to insure and repair their new trucks? Well, according to Ford, it's expecting a ten-percent jump in insurance costs for the aluminum-bodied F-150, although Ford's truck marketing manager, Doug Scott, was quick to point out that the F-150 is generally cheaper to insure than its competition from Ram and General Motors. "At the end of the day, that's sort of a wash," Scott told Automotive News at last week's Detroit Auto Show. "We've spent a lot of time and feel very comfortable that that's not going to be an inhibitor."
The other issue facing Ford is the distinct lack of body shops that have the training or equipment to repair aluminum-bodied vehicles. AN cites an estimate from the Automotive Service Association claiming that of the 30,000 independent body shops in the US, less than 10 percent are able to work on aluminum.