2014 Ford F150 Xlt on 2040-cars

Auto blog

Unrestored 1969 Shelby GT500 one of many classic barn finds going to auction

We love a good barn find here at Autoblog. We like that there's a palpable excitement and sense of mystery surrounding barn finds. Each case has its own uniqueness to it, and this latest discovery is no different: an unrestored, one-owner 1969 Shelby GT500 with just 8,531 miles on it.
In the case of this particular barn find, many of the typical questions have already been answered. For example, we know who owned it - his name was Larry Brown. He recently passed away, and as he had no wife or children to inherit the estate, the car he purchased at Pennsylvania Ford dealer in May of 1969, will be auctioned off by Ron Gilligan Auctioneers.
The car was fastidiously maintained, having never been driven in the rain. In fact, Brown never even washed it, out of fear of it rusting. According to the auction website, the last time this car saw water was probably when it was detailed ahead of being delivered to Brown. If that doesn't sound like a fanatical sense of maintenance on the part of this GT500's owner, this next part will. The interior has been treated to a similarly painstaking attempt at preservation, with garbage bags covering the seats and two layers of floor mats over the carpets. The result is a car that, aesthetically, is in remarkable shape considering it's spent so long in a barn.

Ford Police Interceptors win acceleration war against Dodge, Chevy

Just last month, Ford announced its first-ever non-pursuit-rated version of the Police Interceptor sedan for agencies looking to maximize fuel economy, but that doesn't mean that Ford is giving up on chasing down the bad guys. While the Dodge Charger can lay claim to the fastest lap time at the Grattan Raceway test facility held by the Michigan State Police, the results are now in for the Police Vehicle Evaluation acceleration tests. And Ford's Police Interceptor duo (sedan and utility) came out on top.
In the acceleration tests, Ford says that the Taurus-based PI Sedan with the newly available 3.5-liter EcoBoost V6 was the quickest among prospective police cars in both 0-60 and 0-100 mile per hour times. The sedan posted a 0-60 time of 5.66 seconds with all-wheel drive and 5.71 seconds with front-wheel drive, besting V8-powered competitors like the Chevy Caprice and Dodge Charger by more than 0.3 seconds. These rivals close the gap on the AWD sedan in the 0-100 test with the Ford taking 13.5 seconds compared to the Chevy's time of 14.35 and the Dodge's time of 14.7.
As for utility vehicles, the Explorer-based PI Utility, which accounts for 60 percent of Ford's police vehicle sales, essentially went head-to-head with the V8-powered Chevy Tahoe with similar results. Equipped with the new EcoBoost engine option, this big SUV hit 60 mph in just 6.28 seconds and 100 mph in 15.51 seconds compared to times of 8.22 seconds and 21.95 seconds, respectively, for the Tahoe. Other important tests in the PVE include braking and top speed, but while no automakers have stepped up to boast about their numbers in either of these categories, Ford's images show that the V8 Caprice had the highest top speed of the cars at 155 mph while the Tahoe's 139-mph speed made it the fastest utility vehicle.

‘Ford v. Ferrari’ hype prompts Ford to open its Le Mans GT40 vault

“Ford v Ferrari,” the big-screen adaptation of a book about the famous rivalry over racing supremacy in the 1960s, opens next week, and the fevered anticipation has prompted Ford to revisit that period of its storied history by opening its GT40 Le Mans vault. Literally. The Detroit Free Press reports that a group of Ford executives and staffers gathered this week at the Ford Engineering Laboratory in Dearborn to view vintage artifacts from the years-long duel between the intercontinental automakers and reminisce. Those archives contain an incredible 3 miles of shelving, a video vault maintained at 41 degrees and an actual safe. The archives manager reportedly wore protective white gloves and removed the only known copy of the original plans for the GT project. Also shown was an exact replica of the GT40 driven by Bruce McLaren at the 24 Hours of Le Mans in 1966, the year Ford finally vanquished perennial winners Ferrari form the victory podium. It was created and used for the film, with more than 500 miles added to the odometer during filming. Directed by James Mangold (“Walk the Line,” “The Wolverine”) and produced by 20th Century Fox, the film hits theaters Thursday and opens wide Nov. 15. ItÂ’s based on A.J. BaimeÂ’s 2009 book “Go Like Hell: Ford, Ferrari and Their Battle for Speed and Glory at Le Mans.” The film predictably takes some liberties with the real-life story and characters. It focuses on the relationship between Carroll Shelby (played by Matt Damon), whom Henry Ford II and Lee Iacocca charged with developing a Ferrari-beating GT, and maverick British driver Ken Miles (Christian Bale). The Blue Oval had no involvement in the making of the film, beyond offering up archival material for background research. “It was, wow, especially if you had to go out and service a car during a pit stop,” Mose Nowland, a retired mechanic and sports car engineer who worked on the GT40 Le Mans program and spent 57 years with Ford, told the Freep. “Your hip pockets are only several inches away from cars going by at 160 mph.” Read the full Freep story here.