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Ford Focus ST, Fiesta ST buyers to get free Octane Academy driving school

The Ford Focus ST and Fiesta ST have created plenty of excitement in the sport compact segment, and Ford is looking to make sure that owners are driving and enjoying their cars to the best of their abilities. As an added bonus for buying one of these sporty hatchbacks, Ford will provide a complimentary ST Octane Academy session to be held at the Miller Motorsports Park in Utah.
Attendees will be responsible for travel and lodging, but Ford will provide the driving school free of charge. Included in this two-day trip, ST owners will get class instruction and driving instruction in prepped Focus ST and Fiesta ST models on the track and autocross course. Some karting action will also be involved as will a tour of Ken Block's Hoonigan Racing headquarters located nearby. If this doesn't sound like enough fun, there is also an optional day of activities that includes some more track time in a Mustang GT and off-road instruction in an F-150 SVT Raptor.
Ford told us that those who have already purchased a Focus ST or Fiesta ST will still be able to attend the performance driving school, but the press release, which is posted below, makes it sound like it applies to original owners only. Ford has yet to announce its schedule for the ST Octane Academy or prices for additional activities or guests.

Ford 2Q profit drops 86% as it restructures overseas

DEARBORN, Mich. (AP) — Ford's net profit tumbled 86% in the second quarter due largely to restructuring costs in Europe and South America. Net income for the April-through-June period dropped to $148 million, or 4 cents per share. Without the charges the company made 28 cents per share. Revenue was flat at $38.9 billion. On average, analysts surveyed by FactSet expected earnings 31 cents per share on revenue of $38.49 billion. Chief Financial Officer Tim Stone says the company had charges of $1.2 billion as it moved to close factories in Europe and South America. He says Ford already is seeing an impact from its global fitness measures that included a reduction of 7,000 white-collar workers. Ford, which released numbers after the markets closed Wednesday, says its results include a $181 million valuation loss on an investment in a software company, trimming 4 cents off adjusted earnings per share. Its stock fell 6.3% in after-hours trading to $9.68. Stone said Ford is in the early stages of its restructuring, but already is seeing improvement in some regions. Free cash flow also improved by 80% to $2.1 billion in the first half of the year, he said. "We're already starting to see some early benefits," he said. "A lot of work to do." The company expects improvement in the second half of the year as more new big SUVs hit dealerships and more of the restructuring takes hold. Ford on Wednesday forecast pretax adjusted earnings of $7 billion to $7.5 billion for all of 2019, compared with $7 billion last year. The company previously had only said that pretax earnings would improve. Full-year adjusted earnings per share are forecast to be $1.20 to $1.35, up from $1.30 in 2018. Previously it did not give per-share guidance. Ford's U.S. sales fell nearly 5% in the second quarter, according to the Edmunds.com auto pricing site, as the company exited most of its passenger car business. But Stone said sales of the new Ford Ranger small pickup offset much of that as its share of the small truck segment rose 14%. Edmunds, which provides content for The Associated Press, said Ford's average vehicle sale price rose 2.8% to $41,328 during the quarter. In North America, Ford's biggest profit center, pretax earnings fell 3% to just under $1.7 billion, which the company blamed on switching its Chicago factory to build new versions of midsize SUVs.

Ford's Explorer-based Police Interceptor to get 365-hp EcoBoost option

Speeders beware, the police are going to be getting quite a bit faster. Ford has just announced that it will be offering its 3.5-liter, twin-turbocharged, EcoBoost V6 in the Explorer Police Interceptor. The new engine will be joining the existing 3.7-liter V6. The 365-horsepower, 350-pound-foot mill should be familiar to consumers as the powerplant that's found in the Ford Taurus SHO (and its LEO equivalent, the Taurus Police Interceptor) and the Ford Explorer Sport. It should also provide quite a kick in the pants to officers used to the naturally aspirated 3.7 and its 304 ponies and 279 pound-feet of torque.
The move to the more potent powerplant was born out of all the equipment officers need to carry on a day-to-day basis. These days, there's so much stuff that police need on a regular basis, that there's a genuine market for a faster Police Interceptor Utility, as it's known officially. The Explorer-based cruiser has already accounted for 68 percent of Ford's LEO sales in 2013, and that's with just the 3.7, and we'd only expect that number to increase once the twin-turbo, 3.5-liter V6 is available. Ford won't offer up any indication of what the take rate will be on the new engine, but we're guessing it'll be fairly high.
The success of the Explorer PI couldn't have come at a better time for Ford. The decision to end Crown Victoria production was not a popular one with police, and combined with Chevrolet and Dodge diving into the LEO market feet first, Ford hasn't been performing as well as it's wanted to. The Explorer has been helping it turn around, though. And with the inclusion of the EcoBoost, Ford also has a legit competitor for the Chevrolet Tahoe on the big utility side of the police market.