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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.

Apollo Edition Mustang is a moonshot for charity

By putting a man on the moon, the Apollo Program stands as one of the greatest engineering achievements in human history. Ford is paying tribute to that massive triumph with the company's latest one-off Mustang for the charity auction at EAA AirVenure in Oshkosh, WI, on July 23. This Apollo Edition 'Stang is probably never leaving Earth's atmosphere, but it's going to shoot like a rocket down the road. The Apollo Edition starts as a 2015 Mustang GT, but project manager Melvin Betancourt from Ford Design comprehensively overhauls the pony car. The exterior is finished in a handsome mix of black and white, and the coupe also shows off some serious patriotism with the Stars and Stripes adorning the outside. In an especially clever touch, orange LEDs underneath are meant to make the bottom look like its heating up under re-entry. Inside, the leather upholstery gets upgraded with embroidery inspired by the Apollo Program. Whether trying to launch into space or go quicker through the quarter mile, weight is the enemy, and power is crucial. The Apollo Edition boasts carbon fiber parts for the rear diffuser, side sills, and some trim. The 5.0-liter V8 also gets a Ford Performance supercharger to take output to 627 horsepower and 540 pound-feet of torque. A set of six-piston Brembo calipers should help slow this rocket down, and 21-inch custom wheels add some style. "With this year's stunning Apollo Edition Mustang, we salute that spirit of American ingenuity with the quintessential American automobile – Ford Mustang." Edsel B. Ford II said in the special model's announcement. The coupe is the Blue Oval's eighth charity car to support the Experimental Aircraft Association. The seven before it have raised nearly $3 million for the group's work to get young people interested in flying. Related Video: FORD ANNOUNCES APOLLO EDITION MUSTANG TO CELEBRATE INNOVATION AND INSPIRATION OF APOLLO MISSIONS U.S. Apollo spaceflight program inspires one-of-a-kind 2015 Ford Mustang to be donated and sold at charity auction July 23 at EAA AirVenture in Oshkosh, Wisconsin Donation and sale will benefit EAA youth aviation education programs, including Young Eagles Unique Ford vehicles have raised nearly $3 million for EAA youth aviation programs, including Young Eagles As far as special edition Mustangs go, this one is out of this world.

2021 Ford F-150 Raptor vs. 2021 Ram 1500 TRX | How they compare on paper

Yep, the F-150 Raptor is back, though you'd be forgiven for not noticing that it ever left. Ford's off-road model is taking a few months off to accommodate the broader 2021 F-150 redesign from which it benefits. And the fine folks over at Ram took full advantage of that lull to launch the new 702-horsepower TRX, which in one big way (hint: it's the engine) stands at the top of the performance pickup heap. Ford says that's all going to change in 2022, but for now, the Raptor returns with a familiar 3.5-liter EcoBoost V6 (albeit with an unspecified power figure) along with several other revisions to Ford's tried-and-true formula. The 2020 Raptor was already a worthy adversary to the beefy Ram despite the latter's definitive power advantage, so how has that picture evolved for 2021? Let's take a look.    Powertrain This is a big question mark for the Ford right now, but it seems reasonable to expect a bit more than the outgoing model's 450 horsepower and 510 pound-feet of torque. The TRX's Hellcat-sourced powerplant needs no introduction. Its 702 horsepower will easily eclipse whatever Ford has planned for its 3.5-liter twin-turbo V6, even if the V6 has more grunt than it did before, but that's OK. It's not the base-model Raptor's job to dethrone the TRX in straight-line speed; that honor will go to the 2022 Raptor R. We also don't know what the Raptor's fuel economy will be like, but we suspect it will be better than the TRX's, if only slightly.  Both these trucks come with four-wheel-drive standard, and they both have a number of drive modes that alter the powertrain’s characteristics depending on the terrain. Baja mode transforms the trucks into the desert runners that they both are at heart, but theyÂ’re plenty capable of crawling around rocks, too. We wonÂ’t know for certain which is best at specific tasks until we can get them both on (or off) equal ground. Suspension / off-roading capability And the ground is where things narrow significantly, both on- and off-paper. The specs are freakishly similar when we compare ground clearance, approach/departure angles and water fording, but the Raptor's leapfrog here is clearly evident. Both trucks utilize a coil-sprung rear suspension now, with Ford having abandoned the Raptor's previous leaf-spring setup with the redesign.  The two use different shocks to handle 100-mph-plus desert running.