Wow !!! 2005 Electronically Enhanced Ford Mustang on 2040-cars

Auto blog

Former Ford president, Jaguar chairman Nick Scheele dead at 70

We have the privilege here at Autoblog of reporting a lot of good news, but it is our duty as well to report the bad news and sad news as well. And this is one of those occasions as the automotive industry mourns the passing of one of its leaders.
Nick Scheele was born in the UK in 1944 and joined the Ford Motor Company upon graduating from the University of Durham in 1966, staying within the Blue Oval's portfolio for the entirety of his career. After moving to North America in 1978, he rose through the ranks to become president of Ford's Mexican operations in 1988. After acquiring Jaguar, Ford appointed Scheele as its chairman.
Scheele subsequently acted as chairman of all of Ford's European operations, making difficult decisions to take the division out of the red and into the black. He briefly headed up Ford's North American division before he was appointed in 2001 as president and chief operating officer of the global automaker, working under CEO Bill Ford following the departure of Jacques Nasser departure and retaining the role until his retirement in 2005.

Detroit and Silicon Valley: When cultures collide

Culture is a subject that rarely, if never, gets discussed when traditional auto companies buy — or hugely invest — in Silicon Valley-based companies. The conversation surrounding the investments is usually about how the tech looks appealing and how it's an appropriate step to move the automakers toward autonomy. Culture — the way things are done, the expectations, and the approaches — is something that is overlooked only at one's peril. The potential cultural gap is almost always evident in the obligatory photos of the participants in these deals, with is essentially a photo op of auto execs with their Silicon Valley counterparts. The former — rocking jeans and no ties — look like parochial school kids playing hooky. Don't worry: The regimental outfits will be back in place once they get back in the Eastern time zone. Consider what happened back in 1998 when Daimler bought Chrysler. First of all, there was a denial in Detroit that it happened. It was positioned as a "merger of equals." Which it wasn't. In any corporate situation, when one has more than 50 percent of the business, it owns the whole thing. And the German company was in the proverbial driver's seat. People who were around Auburn Hills back then kept their heads down and their German Made Simple books at hand. Things did not go well. Daimler had had enough by 2007, when it offloaded Chrysler to Cerberus Capital Management — which brought ex-Home Depot CEO Bob Nardelli into the picture, which is a story onto itself. But when you think about the Daimler-Chrysler situation, realize that these were two car companies (at least the Mercedes part of the Daimler organization), so they had that in common, and the language of engineers is something of an Esperanto based on math, so there was that, too. Yet it simply didn't work. It doesn't take too many viewings of HBO's Silicon Valley to know that the business people in that part of the world are far more aggressive than people who ordinarily head and control car companies in Detroit. About 20 years ago, a book came out about the founder of Oracle titled The Difference Between God and Larry Ellison* - and the asterisk on the book jacket leads to: God Doesn't Think He's Larry Ellison. It would be hard to imagine a book about a Detroit executive, even a book that had the decided bias that the tome about Ellison evinces, that would be quite so searing. Sure, there are egos. But they are still perceived to be, overall, "nice" people.

Ford of Europe celebrates Mondeo's 20th anniversary

Ford's European operations are celebrating a milestone of sorts as the Mondeo, the Blue Oval's bread-and-butter D-segment sedan in the old country, celebrates its 20th anniversary. The mid-sizer, which was sold in the US for a short time as the Contour, has been a far more popular vehicle in Europe - even receiving regular praise from one Jeremy Clarkson.
Narrated by Cockney actor Ray Winstone, the video goes through the Mondeo's years and how it's evolved from 1993 to the as-yet-unreleased fifth-generation model, which is essentially the same as the Ford Fusion that's sold in America. Take a look below for the full video from Ford of Europe.