Tag: Ford

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International Women Day

Sorry for late International Women Day’s post. Most of the people have bias toward women drivers. Instead of numbers just watch these two videos from Sabine Schmidt and Vicki Butler Henderson, then think again :)
Sabine is a race driver and drives the legendary BMW M5 Ring Taxi! And she lapped thousands of times around the Nürburgring. Couple of years or may be more, Top Gear gave her a Ford Transit to lap around the Nürburgring less than ten minutes. And she achieved by eight seconds extra! Transit never been designed to race and overtake Porsches.
I guess everyone knows Vicki, she was presenting old Top Gear and now on Fifth Gear. She is also race driver. And she drives a Toyota iQ in city and in a circuit. Like Transit, iQ was never meant to be driving like this and my recommendation is not to try by yourself.

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Cars

New Ford Focus vs. Audi A3

I have just noticed the price of New Ford Focus and I wanted to highlight its price tag with a comparison to Audi A3’s!
New Ford Focus Zetec 1,6lt (125 PS): £ 17 495 (€ 19 980) CO2 136g/km
Audi A3 SE 1,2lt TFSi (125 PS): £ 17 960 (€ 20 400) CO2 123g/km
Both vehicles has similar features and Audi A3 offers much better CO2 level and consumption figure! Even though I am not an Audi fan, Ford’s new pricing strategy will not work well !!! Audi A3 is a still an Audi, despite its old age.

Pictures’ Copyrights
Ford, Audi

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Cars

Ford F150 – Ferrari F150

There is a very interesting branding coincident happened recently. I don’t know anyone is aware of this or not. Ferrari F150, 2011 season F1 car has the same name as Ford’s well-known pickup F150 !

Pictures’ Copyrights
Ford, Ferrari

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Cars

Small spot in white shirt: Ford Mondeo

Have you ever had a spot in your white shirt or in your white dress? I mean a very small, tiny dot. It might be hard to spot by others but you knew that it is over there. This small spot which may not be recognized by other but it destroys the whole white.
What I have shown here is the same. A small spot in a white cloth! I am sure many of you may not understand this hook and why I am so disappointed with that. This hook is the most primitive thing in automotive industry. Many years ago, when an air hydraulic was not present in real world, automotive firms were using this hook to keep bonnet open. I do know that, nowadays nobody open the engine bonnet and looks what the things are there. However if you open the new Ford Mondeo’s engine bonnet (just for adding water to screen wiper), you have to hold the metal cover with one of your hand and at the same, you have to place the hook into its hole! And all these things mean one thing, your car is cheap! Nothing else. And this ridiculous and prehistoric looking hook is from new Ford Mondeo! The sexy one, the car which was driven by James Bond! This hook is the spot in white.
I cannot understand the logic behind this. Because, in previous Mondeo there were to hydraulics to hold the engine cover and you don’t have to do something stupid things when you open it. And Ford introduced a new model with an older technology. I do know that, this is called “profit maximization” and your engineers calculated or predicted that nobody ever be annoyed by this but I am annoyed. I am very serious, this thing destroys everything with the new Mondeo. Also I do know Ford is willing to shift Mondeo into higher consumer group by offering luxury. However luxury is a composition of small details, it is not just ventilated seats and hand stitched leathers.
Ford Mondeo is the best looking car on its segment, it drives excellent, but this small detail destroys everything. The translation of this detail is; “there might be some other cheap things which we may not see.” I know Ford Europe and Ford USA is reading my blog and I do hope that, you will take this serious.
Pictures’ Copyrights
UKCars, Ford and Me

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Cars

New Ford Focus Charity Campaign

A few weeks ago I received an invitation to Ford Focus Global Drive event in London. This was my first event as a blogger. Event took place in Hub, London and it has an excellent interior; a good place for my first event. Unfortunately, this event did not have the new Ford Focus, it was about the Global Drive campaign.
You might wonder what Global Drive is! We all know what Ford Focus is :) Global Drive is a campaign to donate $10 000 to a charity. This campaign does not finish here, in addition to support a charity you will have chance to drive the new Ford Focus in Spain :) And the costs are covered by Ford. Sounds great!
What you have to do? Go to your Facebook page and type this to your address bar http://www.facebook.com/FordFocus then Like it :) And does this “create a video that is no longer than 2 minutes explaining why you want to be one of the first to test drive the 2012 Ford Focus and how you’d start something more for a good cause with the local market equivalent of $10,000 (USD). Be creative!” That’s all :)
Did I upload it? I will ;)

Picture Copyright
Ford
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Cars

A pre-histroic car in New York

Flash news from Volkswagen for US market! Actually the news release is for Europe but the content should be explained to Americans. Volkswagen’s boring family sedan Jetta is quite common in US like in Europe. If you have two children, a wife and most probably you are young and you could not afford to buy a larger car. Anyway, family cars suppose to offer more comfort than coupes! This means suspension should be “a bit” more comfortable without compromising the handling.
Unfortunately, two generations ago Jetta (Bora) and Golf models were offering a catastrophic rear suspension system called torsion bar. Actually some Toyota models and French cars still have this. What’s wrong with that? Very simply; torsion bar is not a suspension, it is just a cheaper replacement for a proper suspension. Many of you will think, so what! When you have a car with a torsion bar, your handling will be worse and people in the back seat will feel the every single pothole inside their spine! It is offering neither better handling nor comfort but it is cheaper!
VW was using this with Bora (Old Jetta) and Golf, later on understood what they done wrong and replace the rear suspension with multi-link independent rear suspension. Multi-link independent rear suspension is a proper suspension, you don’t need to worry about anything but it is expensive for car companies. For that reason, Ford Focus always had worse interior and great handling. Ford Focus has the best rear suspension on its segment.
The current Jetta sold in US market is offered with torsion bar. This means, Americans have a pre-historic suspension system in a European car, hopefully in Europe VW did not risk its reputation and offers the Jetta with proper multi-link independent suspension. Anyway, Jetta is available with micro size engine 1,2lt TSi with 105 horses inside :)
European Jetta 

Pictures’ Copyrights
Ford, VW
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Cars

EcoBoosted dancers in Ford KA, Tony Guy Event

Today was the last of day of Ford KA and Toni Guy event in Bullring, Birmingham. Yesterday I did not have time to take a video of dancers in event. They did the same show every one hour I guess, or every 45 minutes. I am not sure about the timing but they were very energetic. Hopefully today I manage to take a full dancing show of EcoBoosted dancers.
I am sure you will be asking what is EcoBoost? This is the new engine technology in Ford cars. Small engines are coupled with turbo and they produce more power and consume less fuel. Also current 2,0lt engine turn into V6 engines with the help of turbo! Now you can understand why I called the dancers EcoBoosted :)

The iTunes link for the song
Party Girl, McFLY

Picture’s Copyright
Ford

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Cars

Nominee for Ford KA’s hair style event

I have just heard about an event for Ford KA and after this event, KA is going to be the official girl car! This new Ford KA is technically based on Fiat 500 which is a better looking car. Due to maximization cost and minimizing the pleasure strategy of Ford, they are sharing platform with Fiat to reduce manufacturing costs. But will any girl dare this fact? Of course no! Therefore, who cares the platform of Ford KA when it has a very charming design :)
In following weeks Ford KA will have hair style competition powered by Toni & Guy. I used the word powered to emphasize automotiveness soul in events. You will upload your picture to Ford KA’s Facebook page and if you receive many “likes”, you will have chance to have your hair done by Toni &Guy. After that you will be nominated as the stylish person. And you will have chance to drive Ford KA for two months.
But I know the winner :) Actually he does not know that he is the winner but he should be nominated as the spiritual winner of the Ford KA style event. As you can guess he is Richard Hammond from BBC TopGear. His hair is looking much better than Vicky Butler-Henderson and I can clear say, Richard has the best hair in automotive business.
Newcastle, Metro Centre – 15th-16th October
Birmingham, Bullring – 22nd-23rd October
London/Kent, Bluewater – 29th-30th October
Manchester, Arndale Centre – 13th-14th November
Pictures’ Copyrights
Ford, BBC TopGear
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Cars

Limits of art: Ford Kuga

Last week I received an email about Ford Kuga’s artistic event. Kuga is the new mid-size SUV from Ford. It is based on Ford Focus chassis but looks much better than a Focus. Actually after Mondeo, it is the best looking Ford on market, I am including American Ford also. Kuga’s design is beyond Ford’s limit. If it was badged with BMW, it will be the most selling SUV on market.
Unfortunately I did not have chance to drive it. Actually I was not invited to this event, I just received an email. I hope that I can attend to next event. And have chance to try it, but I want to try its limit on off road. It is the new generation artificial four wheel drive cars, they are just designed to park comfortably over the pavement. That’s main reason why many people are buying them :) Therefore nobody is expecting these vehicles to cross Amazon forest. But I still want to see its capabilities.
The interesting fact with Kuga is the transmission. Ford woke up and realized that automotive world has changed and started to offer double clutch automatic gearbox (PowerShift). But in a Ford way! VW also offers the same technology with DSG brand. Basically they are the same but no! I don’t know why but Ford added a torque convertor to PowerShift gearbox. Torque converter is mechanical part between in traditional automatic gearbox and the engine. It is transferring power from engine to gearbox. But in double clutch technology, there are two clutches for this job and Ford added something extra.
I don’t think that engineers in Ford got crazy and added extra weight to gearbox. It should be either patent limitation or comfort reasons. Anyway, I cannot say it is good or bad until I drove one.
The Ford Kuga’s artistic event was amazing also. Ian Cook known as Popbang Colour, painted a Ford Kuga picture with tyres and remote control cars. I think there are no ways a picture can be more related with cars! This is the limit engagement of art with cars. By the way, controlling a remote control car is much more harder than driving a real car, keep in mind ;)
Pictures’ Copyrights
Ford
Categories
Cars

Fat Free Ford Fiesta

I think many of us do not pay attention to advertisements on Gmail website. While you are checking your emails many different advertisements appears on top and we consider them very seriously. Sometimes those advertisements can have wrong information.
Recently a Ford advertisement appeared on my Gmail and I was shocked. Because, the advertisement was mentioned something which does not existed on Ford’s product range mini SUV! Ford does not have any SUV at mini size. There is only Kuga and that’s not something mini, okay for American market it is mini but in Europe that’s something normal size.
With a huge curiosity I clicked the advertisement and I end up with Ford Fiesta! Yes, Ford Fiesta which does not have anything common with an SUV. For normal consumers, Ford Fiesta will be the mini SUV of Ford. And they will be asking this mini SUV in dealer and everything will be overlapping with each other.
In other words, this advertisement is like a advertisement from McDonald’s which says fat free chips and you end up with Big Mac burger.

Pictures’ Copyright
Ford