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First 1K next-gen Mustangs to carry 2014 1/2 model year?

A new report from Mustangs Daily, citing insider sources at Ford, tells us that the Blue Oval will produce 1,000 next-generation Mustangs with the model year designation of 2014 ½, to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the storied marque. The commemorative half-year designation is a rumor that's been swirling in Mustang forums for quite some time now, and seems more plausible than ever with this most recent report. Certainly it's not far-fetched to believe that Ford will want to make a big deal of the golden anniversary for its most-loved model.
The story (compiled by Drew Phillips, who runs the aforementioned Mustang site when he's not directing the photography on these pages) goes on to say that the limited-run cars will be the first built on the new Mustang platform internally known as S550 (and spied testing in the attached gallery). Each car is said to carry a "special" VIN and build number, though no performance upgrades versus the 2015 cars to follow are in the works. A collector's dream then, rather than a weekend racer's.

Just in time for the holidays, Snowkhana 3 is here

The gift list for the 12 Days of Christmas is frightfully heavy on birds, so surely no one will mind if we sub out the three French hens for Snowkhana 3. Ford of Europe is back with another stop-motion video that – like versions one and two – throws a 1:64-scale Ford Fiesta in Ken Block livery around a fabulous world of action figures and make believe. This year's video "drives rings around some of the biggest YouTube hits," so those of you who've lost years of your lives to the greatest distraction since the human navel can put your knowledge to use. For anyone else just catching up, we'll help you get rolling: the opening Snowkhana scene channels Stalking Cat. You'll find the rest of your holiday homework in the video.

Malcolm Gladwell reflects on engineering, recalls, and compromise

Journalist Malcolm Gladwell has made a career taking on big, complicated topics and humanizing them to make the unwieldy understandable. He has already done this in bestsellers like The Tipping Point and Outliers, and now he has brought the same approach to automotive recalls in a long piece for The New Yorker. The article titled The Engineer's Lament is framed around an interview with the former head of Ford's recall office about the famous Ford Pinto campaign where the position of the compact's fuel tank could cause it to explode in rear-end collisions. Plus, there are detours into Toyota's unintended acceleration cases and the General Motors ignition switch problem. While all the history is illuminating, the heart of the story comes from an examination at the thought process of engineers, and how their thinking differs from other professions. Gladwell comes off as sympathetic to auto engineers in this piece. While he admits that they often approach problems in a sterile way, the writer doesn't try point that out as a failing. It's merely a fact to be understood. The story itself is quite lengthy, but well worth a read if you have the time for an insiders view into how these recalls are assessed on the inside.