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newVideoPlayer("/Ford-Focus-RS.flv", 494, 350,""); You can have the most forbidden of Ford's fruits, the 2009 Ford Focus RS , for £24,995 in Brit money or $38,359 if you're in the US and into torturing yourself. Every time we see a Focus RS , it reminds us of the famous pre-hippie era image of Woody Guthrie holding his guitar emblazoned with the slogan "This machine kills fascists," only we imagine a bumper sticker on the tail of the Focus RS reading "This machine kills tuners." We want a Focus RS so bad our insides ache. And with today's announcement from Ford that the pocket rocket will be selling for £24,995, or about $38,359 in imaginary US sales dollars, it makes the churning in our gut even more intense. galleryPost('2010FordFocusRSP', 9, ''); For that dough Ford will serve up a turbocharged 2.5 liter five cylinder with 300 HP and 324 lb-ft of torque mated to a six-speed transmission, all good for a 0-62 mph under...
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Ford has apparently seen stocks of existing F-150 trucks depleted more quickly than it expected, leading the Dearborn automaker to move up the marketing launch of its critical 2009 F-150 by a month to November — after moving it back by two months from October to December. Confusing? Yeah, but considering the roller-coaster ride the economy and fuel prices have taken over the past three months, it's no surprise that Ford marketing mavens are throwing darts at the calendar. If you're a truck customer looking for a deal on the outgoing F-150, now's probably the time to act. If Ford is confident enough in declining inventory to start shipping the new model, deals on the '08 are probably as good as they're going to get. galleryPost('FordF150new09', 6, '2009 Ford F-150'); [ Edmunds Inside Line ]
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Seems one of the 31 metro Detroit Ford dealers has gotten cute and worked up a Ford Flex woody to entice customers in to buy the station wagon/van/crossover. According to Motor Trend 's Todd Lassa, the Flex in question is your basic stripper model, so the woody option makes it all the more innuendo-tastic, but that's no big deal as the option apparently carries no extra charge on the window sticker. Considering the pending malaise II era breathing down our necks, we wouldn't be surprised if this kind of thing starts coming from the factory. [ MotorTrend ]
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Ford PR Flack: "We wanted to give the Flex what we call a 'wow' factor." Random Auto Journalist: "Wow, can I quote you on that?" Press launches are interesting places. Well, if you find humanity in its most mundane and sycophantic form interesting that is. Full Disclosure: I didn't actually drive the 2009 Ford Flex , but I did sit in the passenger seat nursing my gimpy arm while Ray drove and opined on the experience. galleryPost('flexhero', 6, 'Flextacular'); galleryPost('flexexterior', 6, 'Flextastic'); galleryPost('flexinterior', 6, 'Flex-not-so-much'); I don't know when it happened, but at some point in its history, reviewing cars became the domain of the boring, the middle aged and the overweight. It also lost its way, becoming yet another tool for the industry to market its products (something akin to long-form, text-based advertising), rather than a critical method for helping consumers make informed...
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Looks like the domestic market Ford Focus will remain the laughing stock of the worldwide Focus product line if these spy photos of Chinese market Foci are any indication. These images point to the integration of Ford's European "kinetic design" styling language seen on the likes of the Verve concept and current Mondeo . You can plainly see the stretched out headlights and gaping maw down below as seen from other Ford fare here on these camouflaged cars. galleryPost('chinafocus09', 3, 'Chinese Ford Focus'); Also notable is the rather nice and remarkably coherent interior (wonder if it has Sync?). We don't know if this is an indication of the direction the Europe market cars will be going, or if the Chinese market will be making the move to the styling leader, but if the latter is the case, it may just tell us a little bit about Ford's global product strategy. Lots of additional images over at ChinaCarTimes .
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While we're not quite willing to call this a full review, we did get some seat time with a couple of spankin' new 2009 Ford Escape models yesterday. We managed to get back-to-back seat time with both the 2008 and 2009 V6 4x4 Limited as well as the Hybrid for direct comparison on the same 20-mile circuit. When Hardigree reviewed the Escape's platform pal, the 2008 Mercury Mariner Hybrid , it was fairly obvious our impression was one of disconnectedness. The brakes felt funny, the handling was blah, and the steering felt numb. Ford apparently heard these complaints from its customers as well. 2009 Ford Escape Hybrid For 2009, although virtually unchanged visually (the only distinguishing difference is a deeper chin spoiler) the new Hybrid Escapes see the 2.3L four cylinder engine upgraded to an Atkinson cycle 2.5L for a total of 177 net horsepower. The CVT gets a more aggressive software package and some improved tuning on the hardware side. Also new for '09 is the inclusion...
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While we're not quite willing to call this a full review, we did get some seat time with a couple of spankin' new 2009 Ford Escape models yesterday. We managed to get back-to-back seat time with both the 2008 and 2009 V6 4x4 Limited as well as the Hybrid for direct comparison on the same 20-mile circuit. When Hardigree reviewed the Escape's platform pal, the 2008 Mercury Mariner Hybrid , it was fairly obvious our impression was one of disconnectedness. The brakes felt funny, the handling was blah, and the steering felt numb. Ford apparently heard these complaints from its customers as well. 2009 Ford Escape Hybrid For 2009, although virtually unchanged visually (the only distinguishing difference is a deeper chin spoiler) the new Hybrid Escapes see the 2.3L four cylinder engine upgraded to an Atkinson cycle 2.5L for a total of 177 net horsepower. The CVT gets a more aggressive software package and some improved tuning on the hardware side. Also new for '09 is the inclusion...
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Despite the news of the eminent demise of the Ford Taurus X , we're now not as concerned because we just got our first ride in the 2009 Ford Flex . A very hip Ford rep dropped by our extremely touristgasmic digs near Times Square to give us a ride over to dinner and get a little free press for Ford's new hauler. Despite a couple of syntax errors with the next-gen GPS system, which worked fine after we used the correct name of the city, the slab sided super wagon was off to the races a slow crawl through the streets of Gotham. galleryPost('09fordflexride', 9, 'Ford Flex in Driving Miss Jalopnik'); Even though we were a little bit lukewarm over the design when we first saw the production version, on the streets the Flex actually looks pretty cool. Since we were being treated to a ride 'chauffeur style', the back seats are our area of expertise. The seats are firm and they travel on tracks so you can go all the way from huge legroom in the middle row and a reasonable...
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If you're in the mood for a 2009 Ford Flex , you're going to be paying at least $28,295 for the privilege when it goes on sale this summer. This makes it only about $1,000 more expensive than the dying Ford Taurus X , which makes us think those last Taurus X's are going to go down in price soon. As nice as that FWD SE model is, if you want the goodies you could be paying as much as $37,255 for the Flex Limited. galleryPost('fordflexcustom', 6, 'Matt Customizes The Ford Flex'); Just for fun, we made our own versions of the Ford Flex using the Flex Customizer . The one above is our ode to our alma mater. [Source: AutoNews , Subs. Req.]
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For those of you who think that the stock 2009 Ford F-150 FX4 is a bit too tame, Ford has been secretly developing a super off road version under the project name "Raptor." According to Four Wheeler Magazine , this new F-150 will use the same long-travel suspension technology used in the Baja 1000. This type of suspension allows extra travel so that the truck can get across obstacles at a much quicker pace. The magazine claims that this truck is probably still as much as two years out, probably just long enough for people to buy their FX4 and then be forced to trade up to the FXXX4, or whatever they're going to call it. [ Four Wheeler Mag via PickupTruck.com ]
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The folks over at AutoNews revealed that the Ranger will make it as far as the 2009 model year before shuffling off the mortal coil. Fans of the small truck may be sad to see it go, but after 15 years without a serious model upgrade there just wasn't a lot of motivation in continuing the Ranger. No serious word on a future replacement as Ford seems ready to cede small trucks (and small profits) to the competition in favor of the F-Series and crossovers/SUVs. [ AutoNews via Autoblog ]
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