The Truth About Cars » Ford

Review: Ford SVT Raptor

Jack Baruth — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 16:01:07 +0000

It would be difficult to conceive of a vehicle better-suited to demonstrating TTAC’s diversity of automotive reviewers than the massive and massively outrageous Ford Raptor. Robert Farago would have eviscerated it with a zero-star diatribe on the inadvisability of building three-ton boutique trucks with borrowed funds. Sajeev Mehta would rhapsodize about the graphics but demonize [...]

Review: Ford Fusion Hybrid

Edward Niedermeyer — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 15:45:58 +0000

At the risk of sounding older and crankier than I feel, it can be hell trying to find a car with a unique identity anymore. As our four-wheeled friends have become more refined, they’ve also become more homogeneous. Especially when sampling mass-market sedans, the distinctions are often subtle to the point of solipsism, and a [...]

Review: 2010 Ford Fusion SE 6MT

Jack Baruth — Mon, 31 Aug 2009 12:13:27 +0000

There ain’t nothing stock about a stock car. Nowadays, there ain’t nothing standard about a “standard” transmission. How long has it been since you’ve heard that quaint sobriquet for a clutch-and-stick setup? More than ninety percent of new cars sold in the United States are self-shifters. Our oh-so-superior friends in Europe and Japan aren’t as far behind in the trend towards PRNDL hegemony as they would have us believe. Combine the weight of marketplace preference with the increasing difficulty involved in making a stick-shift meet emissions regulations, and it becomes easy to understand why manufacturers are making automatic transmissions the only choice for everything besides specialty cars. A clutch pedal is perilously close to becoming an actual luxury item in today’s market. Does that turn this twenty-two-grand base-ish Fusion into a luxury car? Hell no.

Review: 2010 Ford Transit Connect Cargo XL

Sajeev Mehta — Thu, 30 Jul 2009 15:32:42 +0000

Down on the showroom floor, the guys talk about the "Needs-Payoff:" trying to turn a customer’s perceived need into a coveted sale. This marketing concept finds its Ford translation in the highly anticipated solution, the Transit Connect. The Blue Oval Boyz see gold in them there panel vans---assuming gas prices go north of the three dollar mark as their number crunchers and street-walking doom preachers predict. Gas prices be damned; the Transit Connect screams success for many self-made citizens, provided they don’t carry more than 1600lbs or tow anything to bring home the bacon.

Review: 2010 Ford Flex EcoBoost

Jack Baruth — Wed, 22 Jul 2009 13:54:29 +0000

The Ford Flex rides like a luxury car. It possesses a decent interior, with Ford's surprise and delight SYNC 2.0 system. The Flex is also socially unimpeachable, tracing its roots back to the wagons synonymous with East Coast gentry for nearly half a century (Ralph Lauren has one). Six months ago, I purchased a new 2009 Flex Limited AWD, complete with the amusing second-row refrigerator. So far, I have been pleased as punch. It does everything from cradling my infant son to towing my race car with perfect aplomb. Not everybody likes the way the Flex looks. And? And it's a little slow.

Review: 2010 Ford Taurus SHO

Jack Baruth — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 15:17:56 +0000

Not everything needs to come with a warning label. A bag of peanuts shouldn’t have “Warning: contains nuts” on it. You know what I’m talking about here. But when I shyly asked the infamous “Agent 001” of Autospies to be my co-driver for the next day’s 2010 Taurus SHO twisty-road press preview, perhaps I should have had excerpts from my “Maximum Street Speed” editorials stapled to the functional sleeves of my Gulf-blue Kiton linen jacket. Kind of a warning label, you see. It would have saved him more than a little worry the next day . . . To say nothing of the dry heaves. But don’t worry: Ford’s latest SHOmobile isn’t nausea-inducing. Unless, that is, you are sensitive to the odor of disc brakes when their pads catch on fire.

Review: 2010 Ford Taurus

Jack Baruth — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 11:48:33 +0000

Don’t believe the hype. The 1986 Taurus was not “the car that saved Ford.” Trucks saved Ford in the late Eighties and early Nineties, as consumer tastes moved away from the one-sedan-fits-nearly-all market in favor of the newly popular SUV. Nor can the 2010 Taurus save a Ford beset by problems on all sides. There are no longer enough potential mid-sized car buyers to make a huge impact on the company’s bottom line, and most of those buyers are really better candidates for the smaller, more affordable Fusion.

Review: 2010 Ford Mustang GT, Take Two

Robert Farago — Wed, 27 May 2009 18:58:37 +0000

TTAC writer Samir Syed was on the lamb last night, cooked by yours truly. To honor the dead sheep's spirit, Sam brought by a rented Ford Mustang GT. For some reason, I never got ’round to driving Ford's latest Pony Car, what with the world's largest bankruptcy looming on the editorial horizon and my step-daughter's after-school activities ending for the term. Anyway, the car in which I was about to go roaming in the gloaming embodied its designers' desire to re-infuse the ’Stang with some understated classicism---while attempting to add a bit of visual drama (swage much?). Other than a hideously overwrought rear, there's nothing particularly wrong with the result. Not to put fine a point on it (so to speak), the new Mustang doesn't give me wood. Still, personal fertility and automotive blue pill issues aside, there are plenty of reasons to be cheerful.

Review: 2009 Ford Escape

John Holt — Thu, 14 May 2009 14:02:18 +0000

Conceived in a desperate search of EPA credits, the Ford Escape has walked in the shadows of its bigger brothers, Explorer and Expedition. Despite the Escape’s loveless upbringing, it prevailed, providing easy cream on Ford’s SUV gravy [train]. In the last fuel surge, the Escape found favor: a future president escaped his Chrysler 300C for a gas/electric version of the venerable Fordette. In the ongoing clamor for right-sized, fuel efficient vehicles, one would think the Escape’s inner virtue would shine through. Instead, Ford stifled its middle child by birthing a clusterf*ck of overweight CUVs (Edge and Flex). For 2009, the Escape, again, eats from the scraps.

Review: 2009 F-250 Powerstroke FX4 Crew Cab Cabela’s Edition

Jack Baruth — Wed, 06 May 2009 12:53:26 +0000

Many years ago, in the pages of CAR, the inimitable LJK Setright considered this question: Presented with the last gallon of fossil fuel on earth, how would you burn it? The elaborately justified answer: he would spend it flying a “motor glider,” flying from thermal to thermal across the majestic open sky until the last drop was spent. Setright, regrettably, was not an American. Had he been, he would have understood that the proper way to burn the last gallon of fossil fuel would be to dump it into a Ford Super Duty.

Review: 2010 Ford Mustang Shelby GT500

Jack Baruth — Fri, 24 Apr 2009 14:06:41 +0000

In my recent review of the 2010 Mustang GT, I suggested that only a slight lack of power vis-à-vis the competition kept the revised pony from five-star status. The new “Shelby”--- air-quoted because the car is really a product of the dedicated men and women of Ford’s unsung SVT division--- GT500 is a sharp riposte to that concern. At approximately forty-eight thousand dollars, it’s the only 540-horsepower car available under fifty grand. Or sixty. Or seventy. Or eighty. Or ninety. In fact, if the embattled Viper doesn’t show up in showrooms for 2010, it will be the only car for sale in the country with this kind of power under… the Corvette ZR-1, which costs nearly three times as much. Ah, but is the uber-Stang really worth the premium over the the GT?

Review: 2010 Ford Mustang

Jack Baruth — Wed, 01 Apr 2009 15:38:15 +0000

Many years ago, it became quite fashionable to refer to The Clash as "the only band that ever really mattered." Chevrolet borrowed this evocative line for the introduction of the soft-top C5 Corvette, calling it "the only convertible that ever really mattered" in a two-page color-rag spread. Truth be told, though, those are both pretty tough cases to make. And you don't have to be a Beatles-obsessed Boxster owner (as I am) to argue the contrary. It's far easier to apply the phrase to the Mustang: the only ponycar that ever mattered. Consider the competition. Camaro, Challenger, Javelin... hell, Celica and 200SX. Some shone, some sucked, none have gone the forty-five-year distance. The Mustang was the first ponycar on the scene, the best ponycar available for much of its history, and the only one to not disappoint its fans with periodic disappearances. And now we have a new "new Mustang," arriving just in time to spoil the Camaro's tardy coming-out party.

Review: 2010 Ford Fusion Sport

Jack Baruth — Fri, 27 Mar 2009 14:39:57 +0000

More than three hours and two hundred miles after leaving home, a call came through on our Fusion’s SYNC system: the testing session we’d scheduled at Virginia International Raceway was canceled due to several inches of unexpected snowfall. With ambient temperatures hovering in the fifteen-degree range, and without any available track time to put Ford’s facelifted mid-sizer through its paces, how could we determine if the Fusion “Sport” lived up to the promise of it’s fashionable chrome badging?

Used Review: Ford Econoline Conversion

Sajeev Mehta — Tue, 10 Mar 2009 12:47:05 +0000

Here are some comments you don’t normally associate with the Ford Econoline: lack of manufacturer support and repair facilities, high repair cost and crippling loss of revenue during downtime. That’s what I gleaned from a Dodge Sprinter fansite and those comments came from one of the forum’s more even-handed members. Which explains the sea of Econolines (white paint, out of state plates) on the Bayou City’s expressways after the devastation of Hurricane Ike and not a single Sprinter. So let’s check out a Regency conversion van to find the Econoline’s inherent goodness, hmm-kay?

Yankee Econo-Car Comparo: 2nd Place: Ford Fusion S

William C Montgomery — Thu, 05 Mar 2009 17:48:10 +0000

I believe that the 2009 Ford Fusion S is the most unremarkable car I have driven. Ever. When I sat down to record notes immediately after concluding my test of this blessed blandmobile, I had a hard time recalling anything about it. I got in. Transportation happened. I got out. That's it. This car's striking anonymity served both to prevent it from winning this comparison - not even close to defeating the Chevrolet Malibu LS. At the same time, I suppose flying under the radar preserved it from a potential loss. Actually, the Chrysler Sebring LX is so dreadful that defeating it isn't much of a victory. So the Fusion S ingloriously falls into second place. Read on as I attempt to fill 800 words... about nothing.

Used Review: 1996 Ford Explorer

Sajeev Mehta — Fri, 27 Feb 2009 14:39:21 +0000

Former Ford CEO Jac Nasser’s abrasive public persona during the Firestone tire debacle makes him the most memorable chapter in the Ford Explorer story. Like many famous Blue Oval products, the bean-counted SUV that rode on “traction B, temperature C”-rated donuts suffered a never-ending assault from the Big Chief himself. And now that the Explorer is gasping for breath, waiting for a Flex-based CUV to snatch its storied past, its nice to know the original never forgot its mission.

2010 Ford Mustang GT Review

Jonny Lieberman — Sat, 13 Dec 2008 05:29:23 +0000

It's easy to have mixed feelings about the 2005-2009 Mustang GT. It's handsome, for the money you paid you got pretty good V8 power and it was fast enough. Where the (suddenly) last-gen Mustang falls down is the lowest bidder interior, questionable handling and non-track day brakes. “Listen baby I had a great time, but don't lose any sleep sitting by the phone.” But hey, Ford's prepped a (kinda) all new steed for 2010 and you can bet Mullally's golden 'chute that Mustang engineers have been hard at work addressing the above issues. Well, except for the brakes.

Review: 2009 Ford F-250 Super Duty 4×4

Don Gammill — Wed, 03 Dec 2008 13:59:36 +0000

Thanks to soaring gas prices (remember them?), cliff face depreciation, chronic over-production and a withering economy, the majority of the “my-truck’s-an-extension-of-my-huge-ass-belt-buckle” crowd have flown fly the (turkey) coop. We can safely assume that both remaining pickup truck buyers have bona fide big-truck needs: towing, hauling and posing getting dirty. Yes, Virginia, some people really do "need" nearly five tons of truck. If that's you, it’s hard not to wish for an F-250 Super Duty 4X4 under the Xmas tree. Unless you have a problem with conspicuous consumption...

Review: 2005 Ford GT (Whipplecharged)

Sajeev Mehta — Fri, 07 Nov 2008 12:52:14 +0000

The Ford GT was a bolt from the Blue Oval: a 500-horsepower, mid-engined, retro-styled supercar designed to celebrate Ford’s Centennial. From a marketing point of view, FoMoCo’s $140k “budget supercar” was doomed from the start. After three years and 4038 examples, the Ford GT was done. But its admirers were just getting stated, adding style, horsepower and handling to an already whacked whip. This one has a Whipplecharger.

Review: 2009 Mustang GT California Special

Don Gammill Jr. — Fri, 31 Oct 2008 12:49:57 +0000

In addition to my day job, I’m also a jazz pianist. Recently, after playing an hour of cocktail music for a swank black-tie occasion, I spied an automotive anomaly while walking to my car. The familiar face of a 1968 Mustang broke up the row of elite (or elitist?) German and Japanese iron in the valet lot. “Ah,” I thought poetically, “an oasis of sincerity in a desert of automotive pretense.” But then I noticed the rectangular grill-mounted fog lamps and the lack of a pony emblem. Drawing closer, I realized that I stood before the height of Sixties automotive fluff: a 1968 Mustang GT California Special. The “sincerity” part of my previous thought immediately sprouted hooves and sauntered away.

Review: 2009 Ford F-150

Justin Berkowitz — Fri, 17 Oct 2008 17:05:18 +0000

Although the U.S. pickup truck market is suddenly a lot smaller, it's not small. And while Ford is scrambling to make something, anything profitable in the car segment, the F-150 is still a large part of the reason why the company remains out of bankruptcy court. In fact, the Ford F-150 outsells all Ford cars combined. That’s a lot of pressure for a truck to carry on its frame, even with over 3000 lbs of payload capacity. And so, the 2009 F-150 is here, hoping to prove the value of the old British adage, if you're in a hole, the first thing you do is stop digging. Or at least shore-up the floor so you don't sink into an abyss. Does the new F-150 have what it takes to at least keep Ford in the game?

2009 Chevy Traverse vs. 2009 Ford Flex

Michael Karesh — Fri, 03 Oct 2008 11:28:36 +0000

With the full-size SUV market all but dead, General Motors and Ford are counting on large crossovers (and a few pennies from Washington) to keep them afloat. Sure, small cars are all the rage, but some people need space for six-plus people and their luggage— and will not buy anything with uncool sliding doors. Also, while large crossovers aren’t as profitable as large SUVs were in the 1990s, they are far more profitable than a Cobalt or Focus. The Chevrolet Traverse and Ford Flex recently arrived at dealers. Which is more likely to save its maker’s bacon?

2003 Ford Thunderbird Review

William C Montgomery — Mon, 18 Aug 2008 12:25:45 +0000

First impressions last. Wrong. Psychologists say humans develop their strongest positive feelings to someone or something if they hated it at first. For instance, I once detested Hondas. After spending some time driving various Hondas, the brand earned my no-longer-grudging respect. The converse is also true: we reserve our most negative assessments for someone or something that we loved at first. The human psyche doesn't like to be disappointed. Sadly, the 2003 Ford Thunderbird falls into this latter category.

2008 Ford Focus SE Review

Sajeev Mehta — Wed, 06 Aug 2008 12:35:58 +0000

Selling an SUV in today’s market is financial suicide. Residual values have dropped by double digits— and that was just last week. Buyers who somehow managed to complete the SUV exodus better watch out for the next auto da fe: fully-loaded versions of entry-level whips. Expect a serious depreciation hit for these luxury econoboxes at trade-in time. Still, checking the options list wisely works wonders for your driving pleasure. To wit: the lame duck Ford Focus.

2008 Mustang Bullitt Review: Take Two

Jonny Lieberman — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 11:38:24 +0000

I've driven a lot of new Mustangs. Specifically, the V6 Convertible, GT, GT Convertible, GT California Special, Hertz GT-H, Shelby GT and the Shelby GT500 (coupe and convertible). The only ones I've missed are the V6 hard top (I'll pass) and the Shelby GT500KR. After last week, I can check the 2008 Bullitt Mustang off my pony car to-do list. Limited to "just" 7700 examples, the Bullitt follows the path laid down by its cinematic inspiration: green paint, black wheels, limited badging and more power. As a veteran ‘Stang wrangler, let me tell you how the latest iteration stacks up against the other stallions…