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Ford hiring 2,200 salaried US workers this year

With its influx of popular new products made in the US, Ford Motor Company has announced that it intends to hire 2,200 new salaried workers domestically this year. This is the biggest increase of salaried workers for Ford in the last 10 years, and it is all a part of Ford's contract commitment to the United Auto Workers union to bring 12,000 new jobs to the US by 2015.
There were no specifics as to where in the US these job openings will be, but Ford did reiterate that it will be spending $773 million on equipment upgrades and capacity expansion at six plants located in southeast Michigan; as a whole, Ford is investing a total of $6.2 billion to its US assembly plants over the next couple years. According to recently appointed president of the Americas Joe Hinrichs, the new jobs will be focused on areas such as engineering, manufacturing and computer software. Ford will post its job openings online at careers.ford.com, and it will also use social media sites like Facebook and Twitter to recruit new workers, including military veterans.
Scroll down for more about Ford's planned job growth as well as how to go about applying for said openings.

Ford Australia launches Falcon GT F 351, last of its line [w/video]

It's always best to go out with a bang rather than a whimper, and Ford Performance Vehicles is doing just that in Australia with the Falcon GT F 351. It's the most powerful road car the Aussie performance brand has ever made with a supercharged 5.0-liter V8 pumping out 471 horsepower (351 kilowatts) and 420 pound-feet of torque. It's joined by the FPV Pursuit Ute with the same powerplant tuned to 422 hp and 402 lb-ft. Sadly, the last F in this Falcon's name stands for Final.
The GT F 351 is a monumental way to go out, though. It harkens back to the old days of Aussie muscle Fords, and the 351kw output is meant to reference the classic Falcon GT and its 351-cubic-inch V8. In addition to the massive power, the F has the improved suspension from the R-Spec model and Brembo brake calipers.
FPV is building just 500 GT F sedans for Australia and 50 more for New Zealand, plus 120 Pursuit Utes. They feature a blacked-out hood and black stripes over the hood and sides, plus gloss black accents around the headlights, door handles and mirrors.

UK's Loughborough University improving Ford's 1.0-litre EcoBoost engine

How much does it cost for college students to study zero emissions vehicles? At Loughborough University in the UK, a new Advanced Propulsion Centre (APC) is being built at a cost of a billion pounds ($1.7 billion US). The school has just announce that it will fund a number of grad student positions and is creating a new Chair in Advanced Propulsion Systems, which sounds like a fun job to us. We're weird like that. There will be a total of four professor-type positions in the new Center, including the chair, all focused on teaching students about low-carbon vehicle technologies, specifically electric and hybrid ones. The school is investing 1.5 million pounds ($2.5 million) for the new positions. There is a bigger picture as well, a 26-million pound ($44 million) Advanced Combustion Turbocharged Integrated Variable-valvetrain Engine (ACTIVE) project, which uses funds not only from the school but also from Ford and others. The point of ACTIVE is to study Ford's 1.0-liter EcoBoost engine and "improve further its efficiency and ensure it exceeds 2020 emission regulations." This is already a popular engine for the automaker, and it will need to stay at the bleeding edge of efficiency to remain as important in 2020 as it is today. Loughborough University has been working with automakers on advanced energy technologies for years, for example with Rolls-Royce and fuel cells in 2007 and the Lotus Hotfire engine in 2008. University invests GBP1.5M in advanced propulsion research to advance zero emissions vehicles challenge Loughborough University is investing GBP1.5M over five years in strategic research appointments, inspired by the global challenge to develop the new advanced propulsion technologies required for the move to zero emission vehicles. These appointments reinforce the University's world-class research in low-carbon vehicle technologies, adding new dimensions concerned with electric and hybrid drives. Four appointments will be made, including a Chair in Advanced Propulsion Systems, supported by a number of PhD studentships. The GBP1.5M investment is part of the University's commitment to the recently announced Advanced Propulsion Centre (APC) to support the development of new supply chains for low carbon vehicles. APC is an initiative established by the Automotive Council that will see GBP1 billion of investment from government and industry over the next 10 years.