Ford Reporter

Ford and Honda place trying to catch a leader in green car sales struggle in the United States of America.

Ford hybrid sales were 73%in the first nine months of 2009 compared to same period last year.

In September, Ford said that its financial reports, he sold 26,016 hybrid vehicles, because of the new Ford Fusion Hybrid, which led sales.

According to Automotive News, Ford and Honda are fighting for 2nd place in sales of hybrid vehicles in the United States.

Honda currently holds the second position , led by Honda’s Insight and hybrid Civic, With total sales of 29,958 hybrid cars in the first nine months of this year, pointing to an increase of 8 percent.

Toyota Motor Corp. hybrid drive car sales in the U.S., Recording sold more units than all brands myself. Although market leader, Toyota recorded a decline of 28% of hybrid sales in the first nine months of 2009, with a total of 144,351 units.

Via Focus Fanatics  you can now admire a few photos made to a Ford Focus parked somewhere in a small town.  Sweet.

Well, we`ve lived to see this happening. Ford made an off-road  version based on the Ford Focus 3.  This car, named X Road has 17 inch wheels, silver paint  and a new body.

They say the suspensions remained the same but the car is a bit bigger. The engine is 1.8-liter 125 hp , enough for this car but we`d like to see a bigger engine available as well.  The car will be available in Netherlands and only 300 units will be sold.

Mountune, the British tuner from Ford came with an sportier version of the Ford Fiesta. They upgraded the 1.6 Liter Version from 120 BHP to 140 BHP.  This package, which is basicly an upgrade costs only 1.400 Euro and will be available for the Fiesta Ti-VCT Sport and Titanium.   20 BHP more are enough to get this little car to 60 in just 7.9 Seconds with 2 Seconds faster than the standard version.

A few pictures below:

Well the title says everything  -  Vaughn Gittin Jr made the longest drift in the world, around 6,285 feet or 1.19 Miles compared with just 4,137 feet how the previous record was. He still waits for the guys at Guinness to make it official but we`ve seen enough. Watch the video below.

You may want to read this – The evolution of Ford Europe`s Kinetic design makes its debut in the Ford Iosis Max. This is really a good news since we all loved the new look of mondeo and focus. Ford announced that starting the next generation of Focus we`ll see the same model in US and in Europe. Another good thing about this new model is the engine: 1.6 liter EcoBoost turbocharged engine with “just” 178bhp and a dual clutch transmission.

We can hardly wait to see this model in action.

  More pictures below:

Ford makes everything it can to stay alive and most importantly to stay ahead of its competition. The new prices announced for the 2010 Mustang comes as a confirmation of this. With a price starting at $20,995 for the V6-Engine powered  Ford makes it clear that their new pony will be cheaper than their competition`s cars.  For example the Hyundai Genesis Coupe costs around $22.000, Challenger SE $22,545  and the Camaro LS $22.995.

The more powerful version – the Mustang GT will start from $27,995 compared with the Challenger R/T which costs $30,545 and the Camaro SS at $30,995. The ultimate Mustang – the Shelby GT500 Coupe will cost around $46,325 again cheaper than its competition.

We all love the US version of the Ford Ranger but unfortunately in Europe isn`t available. Ford just announced an European version of their Ranger which can be admired at the Geneva Motor Show. The new Ranger will be available starting this spring in Europe.

Of course this car will be available in a wide range of colors, 10 to be more specific but only 5 are new: Wining Blue, Highland Green, Desert Bronze, Copper Red and Lagoon Blue.  The engines available are: 3.0-liter Duratorq TDCI, and 156 BHP  and 280 lb-ft of torque and 2.5 Liter Duratorq TDCI with 145 hp and 243 lb-ft of torque. The car will have air conditioning, electric windows, and of course mp3 player.

The drag  races just started  and Ford FR 500 Mustang made his debut with a success taking two of the three top spots. Now this is a really good performance. this car was the winner at the NHRA  Winternationals and in the Grand-Am Koni Challenge in Daytona.

This is how every car should make a season start.

The effects of the crisis starts to feel among the car companies. From 2002 to 2008 GM "lost" 93000 employees from 177000 they had in 2002. But they won`t stop here  – this year they want to fire another 13.400 in an attempt to save the company.

Ford and Chrysler don`t stand to well either. Only in US ford fired around 65.000 workers and Chrysler around 32.000. They say this won`t be the end. Until June, more workers could lose their jobs and that total of fired workers could reach 200.000 in just 2 years.

This is a really bad news.

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