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DoJ fines Japanese parts firms $740M in massive automotive price-fixing scandal

Nine Japanese suppliers have pleaded guilty in US court over charges of price fixing in the automotive parts industry, resulting in the Department of Justice doling out a total of $740 million of fines, according to a report from Bloomberg. The scandal, which has resulted in General Motors, Ford, Toyota and Chrysler spending up to $5 billion on inflated parts and driving up prices on 25 million vehicles has sent the DoJ hustling into investigations. "The conduct this investigation uncovered involved more than a dozen separate conspiracies aimed at the U.S. economy," Attorney General Eric Holder (pictured above) said during yesterday's press conference.
As the investigation stands, the DoJ has issued $1.6 billion in fines against 20 companies and 21 individual executives, with 17 of the execs headed to prison. Deputy Assistant Attorney General Scott Hammond said, "The breadth of the conspiracies brought to light today are as egregious as they are pervasive. They involve more than a dozen separate conspiracies operating independently but all sharing in common that they targeted US automotive manufacturers."
Big-name suppliers indicted in the investigation include Mitsubishi Electric, Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, Hitachi Automotive and Mitsuba Corporation. A list of fines and other corporations named in the investigation is available at Bloomberg.

Project Ugly Horse alive and kicking at Road & Track

The hallways of the Autoblog campus are much quieter now that Zach Bowman has taken his prose, along with his welders, wrenches and hammers, over to the digital pages of Road & Track, but that doesn't mean our favorite project Mustang is gone forever. Project Ugly Horse is still coming along, and Zach has gifted us another update on his unfoxy Fox Body.
Last we saw of the Ugly Horse, Zach was strengthening up the '89 Mustang's chassis as he prepares to stuff the turbocharged, direct-injected EcoBoost engine of a Ford Focus ST under the hood. First things first, the old mill must go. Head on over to Road & Track to catch the latest chapter of Project Ugly Horse.

Are you a new Ford Mustang SVO? [w/video]

When Ford announced that its 2015 Mustang would arrive with a 2.3-liter EcoBoost four-cylinder engine, three letters came to mind: SVO. While Ford hasn't said a word regarding the rebirth of a Mustang SVO model, this latest set of spy shots shows us something very, very interesting. Allow us to explain.
The Mustang prototype in these photos looks very similar to the GT500 test cars we've spotted before - same bulging hood, aggressive front fascia and air vents aft of the front wheels. What's different, however, is around back. Have a look at the exhaust, and note that instead of the GT500's usual quad pipes, two of the exhaust outlets have been capped off.
Our spies point out that these exhaust outlets could be closed for some sort of emissions testing or another engineering reason, but it's also important to note that the engine and exhaust notes of this car sound completely different from earlier GT500 prototypes. We've got a video below that compares the two.