2004 Ford F350 on 2040-cars

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Ford barely edges surging Chrysler for Canadian sales crown in best year ever

The auto industry in the US showed strong results through much of 2014 with sales regularly growing year-over-year for many brands. That same trend carried over in the Great White North, as well. Canada posted its best numbers ever with 1.85 million units sold, up about 100,000 vehicles over 2013. The country nearly had a new market leader, too. The big winner among our neighbors to the north in 2014 was Ford with 291,951 vehicles sold, up 3 percent from 2013, according to Reuters. That success also handed the company the sales crown for the fifth consecutive year. In large part, the strong result came from the company's popular trucks, which represented about 80 percent of overall sales. "Ford moved into the number one position in September and didn't look back," said a note to clients by DesRosiers Automotive Consultants quoted by Reuters. However, the Blue Oval didn't exactly take an overwhelming lead for the year. The company nearly had to hand over the sales trophy to FCA after the company rallied in the latter part of the year. The Italian-American conglomerate had its best results ever to nip at the Ford's heels and move 290,004 units for 2014, a 12-percent improvement from last year. Jeep especially helped the bottom line with over 50-percent growth, according to Reuters. Only two other brands were able to break the 200,000-vehicle barrier in Canada for 2014. General Motors came in third place overall with 249,800 sales, up 6.3 percent. The combined Toyota and Lexus also barely jumped the hurdle with 200,851 units moved, a 2.8 percent improvement.

Ford GT40 makes historic return to racing at Goodwood

Is there a more iconic, American racecar than the Ford GT40? That may be a discussion for another day (although by all means, tell us how wrong we are in Comments), but this video of heaps of GT40s running in the Goodwood Revival races certainly has us thinking that Ford's Ferrari-killer might just be the best racer the Land Of The Free and Home Of The Brave has ever come up with.
That's completely ignoring the fact that the GT40 was largely developed by Brits using American money, but that's besides the point (there was also a rather brash Texan, who had a big role later in development). The resulting vehicle was dominant, besting the cars of Il Commendatore from 1966 to 1969, although it should be noted that Ford's GT40 was unable to beat Ferrari in its first two Le Mans outings in 1964 and 1965.
Those four years of dominance, which started with Ford sweeping the podium, were enough to establish the GT40's legend. And now, here we are almost 50 years later, celebrating the mid-engined monsters at Goodwood, in their first ever one-make race. Take a look below for the entire video.

Ford builds Lightweight Concept with Fusion shell [w/video]

It's a fairly well known fact that removing weight from a car is essentially a panacea for many of the modern automobiles problems. Does it handle like crap? Remove weight. Underpowered? Don't add power; trim the fat. Need to improve fuel economy? It's diet time.
Actually executing a major weight reduction program, though, much like with human beings, is no easy task. Unlike you or I, where motivation is the issue, the prohibitive measure in trimming a car's waistline is money. Lightweight materials are expensive, with carbon fiber and carbon-fiber reinforced plastic still primarily in the domain of higher end vehicles. Even aluminum construction, pioneered on a mass-produced level by Audi and Jaguar, is only now starting to make its way into the mainstream, thanks to the upcoming Ford F-150.
With this concept, though, Ford is attempting to show that a mass-produced, lightweight vehicle isn't too far off. This is the Lightweight Concept, and while it may look like a Fusion, it weighs as much as a Fiesta. For reference, the lightest Fusion available to the public is the 3,323-pound, 2.5-liter model with a manual transmission. A manually equipped, 1.6-liter Fiesta, meanwhile, is just 2,537 pounds.