2001 Ford Ranger Extended Cab 4 Door on 2040-cars

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Mulally to stay at Ford through end of 2014 at least

Alan Mulally isn't going anywhere... at least not just yet. The CEO who helped turn around Ford Motor Company has been linked to the top job at tech behemoth Microsoft, leading to a flurry of rumors about potential successors. Those rumors, though, may have just been put to rest - at least for a little while.
Speaking to Edsel Ford II (great-grandson of company founder Henry Ford) at the unveiling of the new Mustang, Automotive News Europe confirmed that Mulally would stick around until the end of next year. "Alan is staying through the end of 2014 and that's all I know," said Ford. "Frankly, he has told us that his plan is to stay with Ford through the end of 2014."
Presuming that Edsel Ford is correct and that Microsoft isn't so hot on Mulally that it saves the position for him, it seems increasingly likely that the 68-year-old exec is more interested in continuing to work in Dearborn rather than in Redmond.

Junkyard Gem: 1993 Mercury Topaz GS Sedan

As long as the Mercury brand existed — a period spanning the 1939 through 2011 model years — nearly every Mercury sold in the United States was more or less a redecorated Ford model. The Torino had its Montego sibling, the Crown Victoria had the Grand Marquis, the Cougar was based on everything from the Mustang to the Mondeo, and so on. Naturally, when the folks in Dearborn developed the Ford Tempo compact, a Mercury version had to be created. This was the Topaz, with the official launch of both cars taking place on the deck of the aircraft carrier often referred to as the USS Decrepit. You can't make this stuff up! The Tempo/Topaz, also known as the Tempaz, has largely faded from our collective automotive memory by now, since it broke no significant new engineering or styling ground (this story would be much different if Ford had only put the amazing straight-eight "T-Drive" Tempaz powertrain into production) and didn't have any endearing features other than being a cheap domestic competitor to the Toyota Corolla and Nissan Sentra. Still, close to 3 million Tempazes left North American Ford and Lincoln-Mercury showrooms during the 1984-1994 period. As you'd expect, most of these disposable cars disappeared from both the street and the car graveyard long ago. It takes a very special Tempaz for me to break out my camera while I'm patrolling my local wrecking yards; generally, this means an ultra-rare all-wheel-drive version or at least a very early model in super-clean condition. Today's Junkyard Gem is neither, but I took one look at this spectacular Bordello Red crypto-velour-and-slippery-plastic interior and recognized that this was no ordinary junkyard Mercury. It appears that Mercury had dropped the idea of clever names for base-grade seat fabrics by the time of the Topaz, referring to this stuff as just "cloth" in all the brochures I could find. That's too bad, because Mercurys had cool names for upholstery (e.g., Chromatex) in the old days. The interior is in very good condition but the steering wheel shows substantial wear, so I think this is a high-mile Topaz that got meticulous care from its owner or owners. Ford used five-digit odometers on these cars until the end of production, however, so we'll never know if this reading indicates 65,404 miles or 365,404 miles. The body is very straight, but there's some nasty corrosion behind the right front wheelwell.

2015 Roush Mustang lineup officially revealed

Just last week, Saleen revealed initial details of its tuning program for the new Ford Mustang. And now Roush is following suit.
Available in three stages - based on the V6 (RS), EcoBoost (RS1) and V8 (RS2) models - the 2015 Roush Mustangs all feature the venerable Ford tuner's latest R7 aero kit complete with remodeled fascia, five-blade grille, gaping air dam with integrated driving lamps and splitter. Around back there's a one-piece deck spoiler and "race-inspired lower aero-valance."