#ford

Speculators on Wall Street (where else?) have been yammering about the possibility of Ford Motor Company creating a second company for its moving-at-light-speed EV business. To that end, CEO Jim Farley had one thing to say on Wednesday:

“We have no plans to spin off our electric business or our ICE business,” he told people assembled on a finance call.

If any readers have a certain spec of Blue Oval workhorse in their fleet, they best pay attention to a recent recall from Ford. The company is recalling 223,628 Super Duty pickups to deal with an issue of faulty powertrain components. At fault are driveshafts that can apparently fracture under a specific set of conditions.

Ford has announced that the Raptor Ranger will become a global model this week, furnishing the relevant specifications while CEO Jim Farley scheduled its arrival in the United States for 2023.

While that doesn’t give us specific details for the version that’ll be hitting our market next year, nobody is expecting massive changes between regions. Our Raptor Ranger will likely utilize the same twin-turbo 3.0-liter V6 that’s inside the Bronco Raptor. That’s a lovely 392 horsepower and 430 pound-feet of torque, with numbers being subject to change to appease local regulators. Though the pickup’s 10-speed automatic and standard four-wheel drive (with a two-speed transfer case and front and rear locking differentials) should persist regardless of whatever the Environmental Protection Agency says it needs.

If you like your off-roading with a side of swamp, Ford has created a Bronco variant just for you. Called the Everglades (presumably, Bronco Bog and Bayou didn’t track too well in focus groups), it comes standard with a snorkel to help with water crossings and integrated Warn winch to haul you out of the mire.

Or, to simply show off at the trailhead. Your call.

You’re probably well acquainted with dealer markups by now. Supply shortages created during the pandemic have left the world with fewer automobiles and car dealerships are taking full advantage of the elevated demand. As you might have expected, this trend resulted in plenty of people overpaying or becoming cautious of a market they now see as wildly predatory.

Car manufacturers have begun asking dealerships to take it easy on the price gouging. General Motors made its plea last week and Ford has followed up by reiterating its own concerns during the company’s Q4 2021 earnings report. The Oval is worried that dealer markups are tainting its relationship with customers, with top executives making casual references to the trend back in November. Ford CEO Jim Farley is now telling dealers that they need to cut it out lest they be punished by the manufacturer.

Those in the Glass House have a deep well of history from which to draw, perfect for crafting low-volume special editions for their raciest machines. This time around, Ford is giving a nod to its 1966 lightweight experimental prototypes, showing up at the Chicago Auto Show in the form of a natty red Ford GT supercar.

Hands up if you’ve ever wrestled with keeping cargo from moving about the bed of a pickup truck. Whether it’s thanks to an oddly-sized piece of kit or something with few tie-down points, trying to safely secure all items aft of the cab can be a trial, with enough rope strung around to trip up at least half of Cirque du Soliel.

Hey, if you can’t tie knots – tie lots.

Moldy old dad jokes aside, Ford has patented a neat take on cargo management. Their idea? A whole bunch of magnets.

It’s a little early in the year to say anything definitive about 2022 vehicle volumes, however, the automotive industry has been signaling that production numbers should begin to rise in the coming months. While that sentence should be cause for a sigh of relief, there are parts of the industry that might not feel as good about it as you probably do.

With supply chain problems having drastically limited vehicle production during the pandemic, many dealers opted to price their goods well above anything that could be considered normal. This worked out poorly for many of the smaller outfits as larger retailers enjoyed record-breaking profits in 2021. Some manufacturers also benefited financially, as the chip shortage allowed them to prioritize their highest-margin products. Unfortunately for them, 2022 is likely to bring affordable vehicles back into play and gradually pull pricing closer to something approaching normality.

The used car market may be red hot, but Ford seems to be intent on pouring a bunch of blue all over the place. Starting next month, certain second-hand vehicles hawked by Ford stores will qualify for a 14-day/1,000-mile money-back guarantee.

Or perhaps some dealers are feeling the heat from places like Carvana. That’s up for debate.

Following the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision to block proposed OSHA regulations backed by the Biden administration, it was assumed that automakers would quickly begin weighing in on vaccine rules now that there would be no federal obligation. However, they’ve actually been keeping quiet on the matter, with Stellantis being the first manufacturer to walk back previous requirements.

While the automaker had previously been working up to companywide vaccine mandates, it pushed back its vaccine deadline for early January. This week, Stellantis confirmed that it will be abandoning the scheme entirely after suggesting that the existing compliance rates were sufficient. Though something tells me that executives have become aware of the swelling pushback against COVID restrictions and became concerned with the optics.

The White House has made plans to host American business executives — including numerous CEOs tied to the automotive sector — in an effort to gain support for the stalled Build Back Better agenda. The meeting is scheduled to take place today, with President Joe Biden and company hoping to convince them to get behind the (revised) $1.75 trillion spending bill after it passed in the House but never made it through the Senate.

Seats have already been reserved for General Motors CEO Mary Barra, Ford CEO Jim Farley, and Cummins CEO Tom Linebarger. The rest are going to heads of manufacturing and technology companies, with a few noteworthy outliers. For example, the Biden administration has also invited the president of the Teachers Insurance and Annuity Association of America and the CEO of Siemens (a multinational entity that’s not based in the United States). Based on earlier statements from White House press secretary Jen Psaki, the meetings will take place in-person, bucking the Biden administration’s trend of hosting virtual events.

Ford loves to dig from the well of history when it comes to naming various versions of its Mustang performance coupe. We all know that.

Perhaps, though, that inadvertently puts pressure on each edition to live up to expectations set by past models sharing a moniker. Expectations that may have been set decades ago.

Fortunately for us enthusiasts, Ford has generally made sure any Mustang that gets slapped with a special nickname has lived up to the name. That’s true of the most-recent Shelby models, the recent-vintage Bullitt, and now, the Mach 1.

Ford’s sales success with the Maverick pickup has been undeniable. But if you’re in need of more evidence, the automaker has begun notifying dealerships to stop taking reservations on the base hybrid model because it doesn’t even think it can keep up with the existing backlog.

After plenty of speculation and spy shots – plus a healthy dose of rumor – Ford has whipped the sheets off what they’re calling the most powerful street-legal Bronco ever to roll out of a Blue Oval factory. Shod with FOX shocks which permit yawning wheel travel, 37-inch all-terrain tires, and heavy-duty bash plates, this thing is ready to jump a few dunes and tear across wide-open spaces.

Under the hood is an engine not currently found in any factory Bronco – and it isn’t the mill your author thought would be residing between these flared Raptor fenders.

Ford will be idling Mustang production this week due to an insufficient supply of semiconductor chips. For all the talk the industry made about getting over supply chain hurdles in 2021, manufacturers continue citing insufficient access to microchips as the primary obstacle preventing them from enjoying more routine operations.

The automaker confirmed the move on Tuesday, explaining that Michigan’s Flat Rock Assembly will be down until sometime next week.