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Lincoln Continental production likely to shift to Flat Rock

Lincoln production may be returning to Michigan, according to a new report from Automotive News. While the brand's current big sedan, the MKS, is built alongside the Ford Taurus, Ford Explorer, and their Police Interceptor counterparts at the Blue Oval's Chicago, IL factory, the production version of the Continental won't be screwed together in the Windy City. According to AN, "industry sources" claim the Continental will join the Ford Mustang and Ford Fusion – on which the big Lincoln is loosely based – at the company's Flat Rock, MI factory. The move isn't just based on convenience, though. Ford is selling a lot of Explorers, and shifting Lincoln production away from Chicago Assembly frees up production capacity for the popular SUV. "Chicago Assembly Plant is vital to our global manufacturing footprint and will continue to manufacture the Ford Taurus, Ford Explorer and Police Interceptor vehicles even after we phase out production of the MKS in 2016," Ford told Automotive News. "We will continue to match production to demand." Looking at the numbers further backs up the argument against Lincoln production in Chicago. Last year alone, Ford built nearly 285,000 Explorers and over 73,000 Taurus sedans, compared to just 8,300 Lincolns. Finally, as AN tells it, Ford is almost telegraphing the Continental's arrival in Flat Rock. The facility has a four-week shut down scheduled from June 15 through July 13, which is twice as long as the typical summer vacation, while there's another two weeks off slated for September. Related Video:

2015 Ford Focus

Sitting down at the pre-drive briefing with Ford engineers ahead of sampling the refreshed 2015 Focus, water bottles clinked as we wet our whistles before Q&A. While pouring a glass, we noticed something stamped on the bottle label: "1L." One liter. We were palming the exact displacement of the EcoBoost engine our group was about to drive. This was undoubtedly coincidence (such bottles litter every conference and dinner table in Europe) but it served to drive home just how small the total swept volume of Ford's wunderkind powerplant really is. It's tiny.
Of course, this isn't our first run-in with the little triple - we've sampled its turbocharged charms before in Ford's smaller Fiesta. At that time, we found it had plenty of poke for the subcompact, but the larger C-segment Focus carries around another 450 pounds or so and pushes a wider profile through the air. Would the three-cylinder have the stuffing to make the most of the Focus' athletic chassis, or would it be a letdown? Would it be the same as it was when we tested it in a Euro-spec Focus a couple of years ago? There was nothing left for it but to head out on the bucolic roads surrounding Versailles the day after the Paris Motor Show and find out for ourselves.

Ford mulling EcoSport for US? [w/poll]

"We certainly have that ability. We're studying it very, very closely." Those are the words of Jim Farley, global head of sales, marketing, service at Ford. The investigation Farley is referring to is the possibility of selling the company's new EcoSport crossover in America.
The diminutive Fiesta-based EcoSport was developed for emerging markets like Brazil and, more recently, China, but it apparently may have a future in the States, where it would form a new entry-level rung below the Escape in Ford's already robust crossover stable. Ford has big plans for its tiny CUV - Farley tells Automotive News that the EcoSport is only available in 10 countries right now, but by 2017, its distribution will have mushroomed to 62 countries. At the time the second-generation model launched at the 2012 Beijing Motor Show as a 2013 model, Ford said the EcoSport would eventually be sold in nearly 100 markets worldwide.
The Brazilian- and Indian-assembled EcoSport is available with a variety of gasoline-powered engines, but the 1.0-liter, three-cylinder EcoBoost giving 118 horsepower and 125 pound-feet of torque would seem to be the powertrain of choice for America, as it was recently confirmed for the stateside 2014 Fiesta.