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Ford gets out of car subscriptions, sells Canvas to rival Fair

Ford says it’s selling its Canvas subscription service to competitor Fair, getting out of the subscription game after less than three years. Terms of the deal were not announced. Ford acquired Canvas in 2016 as a wholly-owned subsidiary based in San Francisco as a service to pilot subscriptions to Ford and Lincoln vehicles, eventually rolling out to Los Angeles and Dallas. The company said it had amassed around 3,800 subscribers in that time, who will have the opportunity to join Fair when their current subscriptions end and will receive more information from both subscription companies. But that number pales in comparison with Santa Monica, California-based Fair, which claims more than 45,000 subscriptions in 30 markets since launching in 2017. Ford was always fairly quiet about Canvas, and Automotive News last year reported that Lincoln executives expressed surprise over soft demand, saying that subscribers were looking for short-term solutions and often dropped out after just a few months. Ford is also in cost-cutting mode under CEO Jim HackettÂ’s $11 billion restructuring plan. The Blue Oval joins Cadillac, which put its $1,800-a-month Book By Cadillac subscription service on ice late last year, citing higher costs and fewer customers than expected. Cadillac has pledged to eventually relaunch the service as a pilot in select cities, but mumÂ’s been the word since. More recently, VolvoÂ’s Care by Volvo subscription service has come under scrutiny from dealers and an investigation from the California Department of Motor Vehicles and has made changes to its program. Thought it also has added the XC60, XC90 and V60 to the list of available vehicles. Fair touts itself as a “commitment-free” solution, with all-inclusive plans covering 24-7 roadside assistance, routine maintenance, insurance and other perks. It uses a mobile app to get customers prequalified, and it analyzes their eligibility and targets an affordable range of monthly payments. Customers then shop for cars and sign up for one via an initial payment that ranges by vehicle type, with the ability to keep the cars as long as they want and drop the service at any time. It peddles used cars from more than 30 different brands, none more than six years old or with more than 70,000 miles on the odometer. Fair on Tuesday announced it has raised $500 million in loans from a group of creditors, including Mizuho Bank and Japan's SoftBank, as it looks to expand its leasing services to Uber drivers.

Lincoln bringing in MKZ Hybrid over rollaway risk

Federal safety standards require that every new car needs to have the brake depressed in order to shift it out of Park. But the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration has found fault in the transmission range sensor on certain examples of the Lincoln MKZ Hybrid, allowing the car to be shifted out of Park without first depressing the brake. The fear is that with this condition, affected vehicles may be unintentionally pulled out of Park, resulting in a possible rollaway. That safety concern has prompted parent Ford Motor Company to issue a recall.
The issue pertains to 7,153 examples of the MKZ Hybrid built between April 26, 2012 and September 24, 2013, covering the 2013 and 2014 model years. As a result, Ford will notify owners to bring their MKZs into their local Lincoln dealer to have the Powertrain Control Module software updated in order to rectify the problem. See the full recall notice below for details.

Junkyard Gem: 1979 Lincoln Versailles

Sometimes a car manufacturer creates a chassis design that continues to make money for decade after decade, and that's just the jackpot that the Ford Motor Company hit when it built the 1960 Ford Falcon. While that car itself stayed in production in Argentina all the way through 1991, the real payoff for Dearborn came with the many vehicles that ended up being built on modified versions of that platform. There was the original Mustang, of course (and its Mercury Cougar sibling), but also the Ford Maverick/Mercury Comet and its successors, the Ford Granada, Mercury Monarch and Lincoln Versailles. That last car is one of the rarest of all the 1960 Falcon descendants, and I've managed to find a nice example in a boneyard in Sparks, Nevada. The Lincoln Versailles wasn't the first Ford product to be named after Louis XIV's pad in France. That honor went to the mid-1950s Ford Vedette Versailles, a flathead V8-powered sibling to the Simca Vedette and Chambord. The Lincoln Versailles was built from the 1977 through 1980 model years. The idea was that it would compete with the very successful Cadillac Seville, a Chevy Nova-based luxury sedan that debuted for the 1976 model year. These cars were not big sellers, with just over 50,000 produced during their four model years. This one is the first junkyard example I've seen for at least 20 years. The Versailles came with a sturdy 9-inch rear axle assembly and was equipped with disc brakes all the way around. Since it bolts straight into a 1964-1973 Mustang (and many other related Fords), a Versailles rear is always the first thing purchased when one of these cars hits the junkyard. This one probably got yanked by the very first junkyard customer who recognized what it was. The interior is still very, very nice. The front seats appear to be the "Flight Bench" split-bucket type, done up in turqouise "Champagne Dorchester" cloth. You wouldn't see an interior this luxurious in a Granada! And I would know, since I took my first driver's test in my family's 1979 Granada. A factory AM/FM/8-track radio came as standard equipment in this car. For an extra $321 ($1,395 in 2022 dollars), you could have a factory CB radio as well. The aftermarket also provided trunk-mount CBs. A Cartier-badged mechanical-digital clock was also standard equipment. This is essentially the same clock that went into much cheaper Fords of the decade. This content is hosted by a third party. To view it, please update your privacy preferences.