By Rob Einaudi

Editor-in-Chief

Ready to conquer soccer practice and mall parking lots everywhere. I guess I don’t get what this does that the Flex, Edge or ever the Taurus can’t do… Check out the configurator at Ford.com Full story at Autoblog

By Jim Brennan

UDMan

Wandering the floor of the New York International Auto Show, I found myself at the Ford Trucks booth. There were two Raptors, a few Super Duty Trucks, a gaggle of Transit Connects, even a Lone Ranger. However, here is a truck I didn’t even know about, and I pride myself on knowing all things Truck: The Ford Explorer Sport Trac Adrenalin!

Continue reading "NYIAS: The Ford Explorer Sport Trac Adrenalin" »

By Rob Einaudi

Editor-in-Chief

Six of the top ten clunkers being traded in are Explorers, with the 1998 model year at the top of the trash heap. These vehicles get poor mpg and have a low resale value (not to mention the whole roll over stigma). And yeah, they sold a ton of them in the 90s. So what’s the most popular car to be purchased through the Cash For Clunkers program? The Ford Focus. More at Jalopnik

Rental cars companies know that most people get a kick out of abusing their cars, and since it’s probably not good to preemptively scold customers, they just try to stick it to us in other ways. So if you want to save a little money next time you have to rent a car, check out the 6 Secrets Rental Cars Don’t Want You to Know. I found it pretty informative—or maybe I just like sticking it to the man. Anyway, here’s the news:

• The General says that it will be able to keep up with demand for the its award-winning and popular Malibu, despite the strike at American Axle. Good news for Chevy dealers, bad news for AA. Auto Observer
• Remember when all those Explorers were flipping in the early ’90s? Even those owners that didn’t wind up topsy-turvy took a financial hit, as their vehicle’s resale value tanked. Now a California judge has ordered Ford to compensate them. Automotive News
• Will we see a "people’s bike" in the next few years? The idea might not be that far-fetched, as VW honcho Ferdinand Piech says the company might buy a motorcycle manufacturer. Stay tuned. AutoWeek
• Remember how popular Vanilla Ice was before he went back to being Robbie Van Winkle? That’s what this review of the new GTR—which says it’s more fluffy kitten than Godzilla—reminds me of. Looks like Mr. Angry isn’t the only one underwhelmed by Nissan’s halo car. LA Times
• Everybody likes taxes. Everybody hates paying more for gas. That’s stuff nobody likes. But is suspending the gas tax—as John McCain has suggested—a good idea? Probably not. Wired

This has to be one of the darndest things I’ve ever seen: it’s a 2002 Ford Explorer that runs on two 500-hp hydraulic motors, which are in turn supplied by a hydraulic pump powered by a 1.9L VW TDI motor that runs on biodiesel at a constant RPM. Hydraulic pressure is built up by the pump to 5100 psi, stored in high-pressure accumulators, and then discharged to turn the hydraulic motors. A project of some very brainy students at Cal Poly, the Explorer runs a 10-second quarter mile, does 0-60 in 3 seconds, and still gets 35 mpg. If I was more of a engineering geek I might be able to explain it better—hopefully there’ll be some more info on the ride page as this awesome project develops. We’re exepcting to see this monster at the Ultimate Track Car Challenge in in June, so stay tuned!

So is it because new cars are getting junkier, or because manufacturers are catching their own slip-ups more efficiently? There are a number of factors potentially affecting the rise in vehicle recalls last year, which might account for otherwise counter-intuitive conclusions: while Ford was responsible for the biggest piece of this year’s recall pie with 5.5 million vehicles, its reliability and quality ratings have also been soaring, earning the manufacturer praise from heavies such as Consumer Reports and JD Power and Associates. When you consider that the lion’s share of Ford recalls (3.8 mil) involved that pesky cruise control switch and affected not only 07′s but older vehicles as well, the apparently staggering statistics are somewhat cut down to size. At the other end of the spectrum, the goody-two-shoes of the recall drama are Toyota and GM, who have enjoyed a relative scarcity of recalls, though possibly through shady means at least one of their plants. Recalls overall have been up since the TREAD Act went into effect in 2000 in response to the Firestone tire fiasco of the 90′s, which resulted in Ford’s Explorer, factory-equipped with Firestones, becoming known as the "Exploder." It seems like a lot more engineering and materials are poured into automotive technology and safety, but you have to wonder: are today’s new cars significantly less garbagey than the showroom models of ten years ago? Ponder the complex ins and outs at Freep.