2011 Ford F150 Lariat on 2040-cars

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Watch this Ford F-150 SVT Raptor fly like an eagle [UPDATE]

The Ford F-150 SVT Raptor is a very capable truck right out of the box, but "capable" has never translated into "invincible." Just ask the owner of the machine in this video. In it, the driver gets frisky with an aggressive jump with plenty of speed on his hands. The result is enough air to make Vaughn Gittin Jr. blush. As always, it's not the launch that's painful, but the re-entry. Gravity eventually asserts its dominance over the $43,630 pickup in a big way, and when it comes crashing down, it does so with a vengeance.
The impact was hard enough to set off both the alarm and multiple airbags inside the cabin. It's unclear if anyone was injured in the stunt, but we certainly wouldn't be surprised to hear that was the case. You can check out the stunt in the video below, and remember, when in doubt, back out of the throttle. Be warned, there may be some explicit/NSFW language in the clip.
UPDATE: Second video added with an even better look at the jump added below.

Ford Focus ST checks into Jay Leno's Garage

In a change of pace from the high-end vehicles that often appear in Jay Leno's Garage, Ford sends its hottest hatchback (in the US, at least), the 252-horsepower Focus ST, to be featured on Leno's show. Accompanying the five-door hatch is its chief engineer, Jamal Hameedi.
Riding on stylish 18-inch wheels with summer tires and with a spoiler that doubles as a lunch tray, Hameedi and Leno walk us through the finer points of what makes the ST special, which also includes bigger brakes, torque vectoring, a manual transmission and, of course, 252 hp and 270 pound-feet of torque from the 2.0-liter EcoBoost four-cylinder engine, which is made possible by 21 psi of turbocharged boost.
Watch the video below to see what Leno thinks of the global Focus ST.

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.