1985 Ford Bronco Xlt Sport Utility 2-door 5.8l on 2040-cars

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Bosch fined $57.8 million by DOJ for price fixing and bid rigging

The US Department of Justice has been investigating bid rigging and price fixing among automotive parts suppliers for years, and so far the agency has leveled nearly $2.5 billion in fines against 34 companies. The latest business to be caught in this ongoing crackdown is Germany's Robert Bosch GmbH (Bosch), the world's largest independent auto component maker, and it agrees to pay a $57.8 million criminal fine to the Feds. According to the DOJ, Bosch has agreed to plead guilty to pricing fixing and bid rigging for spark plugs and oxygen sensors supplied to the former DaimlerChrysler, Ford and General Motors. The rigging is said to have occurred between January 2000 and July 2011. Bosch also allegedly played foul with starter motors sold to Volkswagen from January 2009 until at least June 2010. Bosch and other companies allegedly conspired on the pricing for bids to submit to automakers, and sold the parts at noncompetitive prices. The DOJ filed a one-count felony charge in US District Court for these actions. The company's plea is still subject to court approval, though. Bosch is only the third European company to be charged in this investigation, according to the DOJ. So far, many of the fined businesses have been from Japan, including Takata, NGK and others. Some execs have claimed price-fixing has been the standard operating procedure in the auto parts industry for a long time. Robert Bosch GmbH Agrees to Plead Guilty to Price Fixing and Bid Rigging on Automobile Parts Installed in U.S. Cars Robert Bosch GmbH, the world's largest independent parts supplier to the automotive industry, based in Gerlingen, Germany, has agreed to plead guilty and to pay a $57.8 million criminal fine for its role in a conspiracy to fix prices and rig bids for spark plugs, oxygen sensors and starter motors sold to automobile and internal combustion engine manufacturers in the United States and elsewhere, the Department of Justice announced today. According to the one-count felony charge filed today in the U.S. District Court of the Eastern District of Michigan, Bosch conspired to allocate the supply of, rig bids for, and to fix, stabilize and maintain the prices of, spark plugs and oxygen sensors sold to automobile and internal combustion engine manufacturers such as DaimlerChrysler AG, Ford Motor Company, General Motors Company and Andreas Stihl AG & Co., among others, in the United States and elsewhere.

Jay Leno's Garage goes eco with Ricardo HyBoost

"Now before you turn away, this is not another boring hybrid car thing..." Despite the slightly defensive introduction from Jay, the latest episode of Jay Leno's Garage is actually pretty fascinating. The Ricardo HyBoost is a 2009 Ford Focus that has had a 1.1-liter engine swapped in for the stock 2.0-liter four. That might not get you performance enthusiasts out there fired up, until, that is, you hear that the 1.1L is also fed by both a turbocharger and an electrically driven supercharger for an instant-on "torque-fill" effect. Sounds about right, considering that Ricardo engineering is part of the genius behind the McLaren P1.
Perhaps most exciting of all, the Ricardo folks say that the package should run somewhere in the neighborhood of $1,100. A sort of performance-hybrid that makes sense for the frugal driver and the enthusiast one, then. There's a lot more to the HyBoost, all of which can be seen in the video below.

Ford Mustang GT350 seen and heard in motion for the first time

We just recently saw our first spy shots of the next-gen hi-po Ford Mustang slated to replace the Shelby GT500, but now we're getting our first look - and listen - of prototypes captured on video. Mustang6g.com has the video (along with some different spy shots), which show that, if nothing else, SVT knows how to tune an exhaust system. The :50 mark is a good example of this, but fast-forward to around 2:00 where the driver revs the engine and really gets on the throttle hard taking off from a stop.
There's still no definitive evidence that the next-gen SVT Mustang - said to be called GT350 - will be naturally aspirated, but it sounds just as menacing as the current Shelby GT500. While the video posted below exhibits the sort of quality that is to be expected from someone driving while trying to film someone who is attempting to elude being filmed, it's still exciting to see and hear this new Mustang in motion.