2012 Ford F-150 Svt Raptor Crew Cab Pickup 4-door 6.2l on 2040-cars

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24 Hours of Le Mans live update part two

We tasked surfing journalist Rory Parker to watch this year's live stream of the 2016 24 Hours of Le Mans. What follows is an experiment to experience the world's greatest endurance race from the perspective of a motorsports novice. Parker lives in Hawaii and can hold his breath longer than he can go without swearing. For Part One, click here. Or you can skip ahead to Part Three here. I write about surfing for a living. If you can call it a living. Basically means I spend my days fucking around and my wife pays for everything. Because she's got a real job that pays well. Brings home the bacon. Very progressive arrangement. Super twenty first century. I run a surf website, beachgrit.com, with two other guys. It's a strange gig. More or less uncensored. Kind of popular. Very good at alienating advertisers. My behavior has cost us a few bucks. I'm terrible at self-censorship. Know there's a line out there, no idea where it lies. I still don't understand any of the technical side. Might as well be astrophysics or something. For contests I do long rambling write ups. They rarely make much sense. Mainly just talk about my life, whatever random thoughts pop into my head. "Can you do something similar for Le Mans?" "Sure, but I know absolutely fuck-all about racing." "That's okay. Just write what you want." "Will do. But you're gonna need to edit my stuff. Probably censor it heavily." So here I am. I spent the last week trying to learn all I can about the sport of endurance racing. But there's only so much you can jam in your head. And I still don't understand any of the technical side. Might as well be astrophysics or something. While I rambled things were happening. Tracy Krohn spun into the gravel on the Forza chicane. #89 is out of the race after an accident I missed. Pegasus racing hit the wall on the Porsche curves. Bashed up front end, in the garage getting fixed. Toyota and Porsche are swapping back and forth in the front three. Ford back in the lead in GTE Pro. #91 Porsche took a stone through the radiator, down two laps. Not good. The wife and I are one of those weird childless couples that spend way too much time caring for the needs of their pet. French bulldog, Mr Eugene Victor Debs. Great little guy. Spent the last four years training him to be obedient and friendly. Nice thing about dogs, when you're sick of dealing with them you can just lock 'em in another room for a few hours. You don't need to worry about paying for college.

Ford not backing down on MPG-based marketing strategy

The Blue Oval may have to back off a bit from the green messaging. Ford has had to lower fuel-economy ratings on a number of 2013 and 2014 model-year vehicles, namely its hybrids. And that may force the US automaker to rethink some of its marketing strategy, Automotive News reports. Ford has spent much of the year pushing its fuel-efficiency improvements, with everything from a Super Bowl ad saying its Fusion Hybrid gets "almost double" the fuel efficiency of an average vehicle (after the recalculation, it's now more like 75 percent better) to claiming the Fiesta is the most fuel-efficient non-hybrid in the US (it's actually the Mitsubishi Mirage) to stating the C-Max Hybrid gets better fuel economy than the Toyota Prius V (it doesn't). Nonetheless, Ford doesn't plan on changing its mpg marketing emphasis anytime soon, the company said in an e-mailed statement to AutoblogGreen. "Providing customers great fuel economy is a key part of our Ford vehicle DNA." "Providing customers great fuel economy is a key part of our Ford vehicle DNA," the company said. "We will continue to highlight our vehicles features and attributes in our advertising and marketing, which includes fuel economy and fuel-saving technologies like EcoBoost and hybrids." Earlier this month, Ford said it would lower the fuel-economy ratings of models such as the C-Max, Fusion and Lincoln MKZ Hybrids as well as most of the Fiesta line because of mistakes in the company's internal testing data. It was the second change for the C-Max Hybrid. The good news for Ford is that its fleetwide fuel economy is up almost 40 percent from a decade ago, compared to an improvement of around 23 percent for Toyota. Still, while sales of Ford hybrids and plug-ins are about even with last year through the first five months of 2014, C-Max Hybrid sales have plunged 49 percent from a year earlier. Earlier this year, Ford admitted that the first fuel economy downgrade had a negative effect on sales and we can find proof in the numbers. Before that the change was announced, in August 2013, Ford was consistently selling over 2,000 – and sometimes over 3,000 – C-Max Hybrids a month. In September, it dropped to 1,424, then to 1,438 in October. It didn't climb back above 2,000 until May 2014. The second mpg adjustment was announced in June.

Ford to kick off F-150 campaign during College Football Playoff

The long-awaited inaugural College Football Playoff will feature the nation's best college teams, with the Oregon Ducks taking on the Florida State Seminoles, and Alabama Crimson Tide facing some team from Ohio. On top of that, though, it'll also see the launch of the very first advertising campaign for the 2015 Ford F-150. Viewers from across the country will see a trio of ads featuring the all-aluminum truck, with two half-minute spots and a full 60-second commercial, all voiced by Denis Leary, touting the F-150's feature set and towing capacity, but passing on mentioning the new truck's class-leading fuel economy. That, Automotive News reports, isn't a miscue by Ford. The company simply didn't have enough time between the EPA's fuel economy announcement and the 2014-2015 Bowl Season to prepare a spot. Expect plenty on the F-150's fuel efficiency in future spots. Interestingly, though, AN is reporting future F-150 advertising won't include a Super Bowl appearance. Ford has made the decision to focus its new truck ads on college football rather than during the NFL championship. "From our point of view, there's no bigger stage to debut the F-150 creative than the College Football Playoff," Keith Koeppen, Ford's US marketing communications boss, told AN. "It's so closely aligned with the passions of our customer." It's those passions that are pushing Ford to kick off its ad campaign for a new truck so much earlier. Speaking to AN, Doug Scott, Ford's truck marketing manager, said that the automaker typically doesn't begin ad campaigns until its dealers have at least a fifty-fifty mix of old and new models, but that it's pushing the 2015 F-150's ads to fit with the college football playoffs. While Ford's focus is on the two semifinal playoff games on New Year's Day and the National Championship Game on January 12, the ads will actually air for the first time on New Year's Eve, when the TCU Horned Frogs face off against the Ole Miss Rebels in the Peach Bowl. The three spots will also be shown during other bowl games, as well. Featured Gallery 2015 Ford F-150 2.7L EcoBoost at Davis Dam News Source: Automotive News - sub. req.Image Credit: Ford Marketing/Advertising Ford Truck ncaa