2000 Ford Explorer Xlt Sport Utility 4-door 5.0l on 2040-cars

Auto blog

2014 Ford Transit Connect Taxi hopes to fare thee well

New York City may have selected its taxi of tomorrow, but there are still plenty of municipalities across the US with citizens that depend on yellow livery cars to get them across town in a jiffy. That's why Ford is going ahead with this, the new Transit Connect Taxi.
Based on the 2014 Transit Connect, the TC Taxi boasts a number of features designed to make the compact van appeal to discerning taxi drivers and their fares, with the most notable upgrade being a standardized prep package to convert the 2.5-liter four to run on liquefied petroleum or compressed natural gas. The clean-burning fuel options will allow operators to save on fuel costs and cut down on pollution without sacrificing performance.
A lower load floor and a new twist-beam rear suspension are meant to improve the riding experience for passengers, while the longer 2014 Transit Connect sports extra cargo space as well. In addition to the CNG/LPG conversion, the Transit Connect Taxi can also be easily modified for wheelchair access. Drivers, meanwhile, will have access to optional goodies like Sync with MyFord Touch and a rear-view camera.

40+ cars that barely avoid the gas guzzler tax

The Gas Guzzler schedule, with mpg ratings and charges that haven't changed since 1991, lays out which fuel-swillers owe what to Uncle Sam.
I started thinking about the "Gas Guzzler Tax" - considerably less well known as The Energy Tax Act of 1978 - when I was driving Dodge's new Challenger SRT Hellcat last week. Unsurprisingly for a car that can burn 1.5 gallons of gas per minute at max tilt, theoretically able to empty a full tank of premium in about 13 minutes, the Hellcat will be subject to the Gas Guzzler Tax schedule when it goes on sale.

Ford family keeps special voting rights

Ford Motor Company has a dual-class stock structure of Class A and Class B shares. The roughly three billion Class A shares are for the general public like you and me, while the roughly 71 million Class B shares are all owned by the Ford family. Each Class A share gets the shareholder one vote, each Class B share is worth 16 votes, the result being that Common Stock holders control about 60 percent of the company while the Ford family controls 40 percent even though it holds far fewer shares. The only way that could ever change would be if the Fords sell their Class B shares, but even so, Class B shares revert to Class A when sold outside the family, so they'd have to sell a whole bunch of them.
A contingent of Class A shareholders think the dual-class system is unfair, and for the past few years a vote's been held during the annual shareholders meeting to end it. It has failed every time, as it just did again during the meeting held this week. A smidge over 33 percent voted to end the dual system, outvoted by the 67 percent who are happy with the way Ford is going - unsurprising in view of a corporate turnaround that will be part of business-class curricula for years to come.
On the sidelines, Ford elected Ellen R. Marram to the post of independent director, the first woman to hold the job. The former Tropicana CEO and 20-year Ford board member replaces retiring board member Irvine Hockaday who helped bring Alan Mulally to the CEO position.