2007 - Ford Mustang on 2040-cars

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2015 Ford Focus Sedan is fresh-faced and ready to defend its Most Popular crown

Ford has made an art of deeper-than-normal midlife updates since the 2010 Fusion, a strategy that has allowed it to keep models looking fresher in showrooms for longer without needing full redesigns. Instead of slight touchups to light fixtures, new paint colors and perhaps new wheel patterns, Ford has been digging deeper, with significant sheetmetal changes and very different front-end looks, along with an increased emphasis on new in-car technologies to keep models vibrant. Other automakers are following this trend, and Ford itself is continuing on the path with this new 2015 Focus Sedan.
There's a handsome new SE Sport Package that includes a firmer touring suspension, modest body kit and 17-inch wheels.
We first saw this sleek Aston Martin-like nose fitted to a Focus at the Geneva Motor Show last month, but Ford only showed the new look on the five-door hatchback - this is the first appearance of the sedan, which will bow at next week's New York Auto Show. The front end treatment is the same, with a new hood, new headlamps incorporating LED accents, a different grille shape and a completely revised lower fascia that does away with the 2014 model's controversial triangle-shaped corners and gaping intakes. The rear gets a new two-piece, laser-brazed trunk lid with new taillamps, but the overall look is quite similar to last year's car. In any case, the refreshed look brings the Focus sedan more in line with the design of Ford's other recently reworked cars, including the Fusion and Fiesta.

Automakers, dealers are rushing cars to Houston after Harvey

DETROIT — Houston-area car retailers and automakers are rushing to reopen dealerships and beef up inventory to replace many hundreds of thousands of vehicles damaged in flooding from Hurricane Harvey. Pete DeLongchamps, vice president for manufacturer relations at Group 1 Automotive, the third-largest U.S. auto dealer group, said the company prepared for the storm with a plan designed after Hurricane Katrina in 2005. This included moving moved inventory to higher ground and cleaning roof drains to avoid cave-ins. Group 1 thus lost a "relatively small percentage" of inventory and reopened its roughly 25 dealerships in the Houston and Beaumont area by Thursday. "Things have been moving fast and furious with a large number of tow-ins already," DeLongchamps said. "Our customers have lost a lot of vehicles, we need to help them replace." Harvey brought record flooding to Houston and killed at least 35 people. The storm is expected to briefly depress already slowing U.S. auto sales but could eventually help boost demand as damaged cars are replaced. Automakers report U.S. August sales on Friday. Estimates for the number of Harvey-damaged vehicles needing replacement range up to 500,000. By Thursday, AutoNation, the largest U.S. auto retail chain, had reopened its 17 Houston stores and is moving cars and trucks from other regions, company spokesman Marc Cannon said. The company plans to move 500 to 1,000 used cars to an AutoNation USA used car store and stage a sale Sept. 21-23, when many would-be buyers should have insurance checks to replace destroyed vehicles, Cannon said. AutoNation is still assessing how many vehicles it lost, but it too moved vehicles to higher ground ahead of the storm. General Motors spokesman Jim Cain said the number of damaged vehicles at dealerships "is relatively modest." "But there are still several dealerships that are inaccessible, so the number will increase," he said. GM will move new and used vehicles to Houston, "but it won't be done until the infrastructure and our dealers are ready." Ford is still assessing damage and inventory needs, a spokeswoman said. CarMax, the biggest U.S. used car dealer, will reopen its six Houston area stores on Labor Day, spokeswoman Claire Hunter said. "We are mobilizing additional inventory to the region as we speak," Hunter said. Paul Lips, chief operating officer at ADESA, a unit of KAR Auction Services Inc., which with Manheim dominates the U.S.

Watch divers pull 1973 Ford Mustang Mach 1, Mazda RX-7 from a river

It’s like the ultimate barn find, only swap out the relatively ideal dry confines of a barn for a watery grave. Adventures with Purpose, a YouTube channel devoted to the exploits of a group of divers in Oregon that specializes in pulling submerged cars from the water, recently found six vehicles in the Tualatin River, near Portland. The most notable finds? A 1973 Ford Mustang Mach 1 fastback and a Mazda RX-7 sports car, plus a Chevrolet LUV pickup, which is not shown being pulled from the water. As you might expect, neither are exactly in top condition, with the badly rusted Mustang basically disintegrating into scrap pieces as itÂ’s pulled onto a flatbed truck parked on a boat ramp. The RX-7, meanwhile, is caked with mud, its windshield and roof crumpled, but itÂ’s basically intact. A hat tip goes to CarBuzz for spotting the videos. The divers use inflatable salvage bags to help raise the vehicles. They removed the MustangÂ’s rusted and encrusted V8 first — the '73 model came with either 302 or 351 engines — and had to pause to remove some of the thick mud that had built up inside the car. Other things they found from both pulls include an old sledgehammer, a stop sign and a rusted Washington state license plate. This content is hosted by a third party. To view it, please update your privacy preferences. Manage Settings. The crew say they received a call from someone who told them theyÂ’d find plenty of vehicles in the river. The whole Mach 1 salvage operation took two days. “A lot of you are going to be a bit upset at how destroyed the Mustang Mach 1 became after we tried removing it from the river,” the team wrote in its description. “In our defense, there was an extra 8,000 pounds of mud inside the car, along with the Mustang being underwater in the river for over 40 years.” The Adventures with Purpose team says it has recovered 326 cars, six guns, two bodies and a tractor, among things. Related Video: This content is hosted by a third party. To view it, please update your privacy preferences. Manage Settings.     Ford Mazda Coupe Performance Classics