1970 Ford F100 302ci Floor Shift on 2040-cars

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Ford Escort is ready to focus on the Chinese market

Ford officially revived the Escort name in China, showing of the new, four-door compact at the Beijing Motor Show. Painted in a stylish brown-bronze, the new sedan wears a number of global Ford styling cues while sharing its platform with the Ford Focus.
Power for the new model comes from a 1.5-liter four-cylinder, although Ford doesn't specify just how much power is on offer, simply saying that the fuel economy of the new mill will be "outstanding." It's unclear what transmission will be distributing the engine's power, although based on the images we've seen, the Escort will definitely offer a two-pedal setup.
The layout of the cabin is fairly clean, although as we mentioned in our initial post on the new Escort, it's a decidedly sparser environment than we've grown use to in US-spec Fords of late. If anything, it's like a weird blend of current Ford switchgear with an overall look that reminds us of older Ford layouts. Still, it looks like a comfortable way of moving five people about without too much fuss. There's ample space both front and rear, and a rather spacious trunk.

Ford doubling 1.0L EcoBoost engine production

Ford's 1.0-liter EcoBoost three-cylinder engine hasn't been around that long, but it sounds like the engine is getting to be fairly popular in the automaker's global car lineup. The Detroit News is reporting that Ford has add a second shift that will allow its German engine plant to double daily output from 500 engines to 1,000.
The increased capacity is part of a plan to sell more than 300,000 vehicles a year with this engine in Europe by 2015. Europe is currently the only market where the smallest of the EcoBoost engines is offered (including in the Focus pictured above), but US-spec Fiesta models will be getting this mill for 2014.
Three-cylinder engines are expected to continue to grow in popularity in coming years with the report indicating that global production of these engines will double by 2018 to 9.8 million units. General Motors, BMW and Mitsubishi are all expected to introduce three-cylinder engines in the near term, as well.

Autoblog Podcast #317

Mitsubishi Mirage, Toyota thinks of beefing up US production, Marchionne on Alfa, Dart and minivans, Ford Atlas concept, Honda Gear concept
Episode #317 of the Autoblog Podcast is here, and this week, Dan Roth, Jeff Ross and Michael Harley bookend the other podcast topics with a pair from the Montreal Auto Show, the Mitsubishi Mirage and Honda Gear concept, and in between we talk about Toyota building all its US-market cars stateside, Hyundai building a Nurburgring test facility, Sergio Marchionne's latest words about Alfa Romeo, Dodge Dart powertrains and the future of Chrysler vans. Some chatter about the Ford Atlas concept finishes up the meat of the 'cast and then we wrap with your questions. For those of you who hung with us live on our UStream channel, thanks for taking the time. Keep reading for our Q&A module for you to scroll through and follow along, too. Thanks for listening!
Autoblog Podcast #317: