1993 Ford Mustang Cobra on 2040-cars

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2015 Ford Mustang prototype spotted on the street

Our trusty spy photographers have snapped the first photos of the 2015 Ford Mustang prototype out on public streets. With nearly every square inch of the machine covered in heavy camouflage, it's difficult to discern details, but we can see smallish horizontal headlamps at work in the coupe's nose. Ford has made it clear that modern lighting technology will allow the company to get away from large, expensive headlamp arrays in the near future, and the 2015 Mustang may very well be the first of the automaker's products to bow with the new tech. The philosophy was first displayed on the very attractive Evos Concept.
The extensive cladding doesn't extend all the way to the prototype's rockers in the instance, giving us a look at the heavily-sculpted sills. Overall, this test car looks considerably smaller than the current generation Mustang, and elements like a short front overhang and beefy dual-piston calipers give us plenty of hope for the future model. Of course, reports that the 2015 Mustang will bow with an independent rear suspension and EcoBoost power certainly don't hurt our feelings, either.

Ford reports $3B profit in Q4, $6.9B for the year

Good news out of Dearborn today, as Ford announced $3 billion in profit for the last quarter of 2013, a 90-percent increase over the same period of 2012. Net income for all of last year, meanwhile, jumped to $7.2 billion from $5.7 billion in 2012, while pre-tax profits sat at a decade-topping $6.9 billion for all of 2013.
The results of the substantial profit increases are bigger profit-sharing checks for UAW employees. How big? A record $8,800 on average for 47,000 UAW workers, making 2013 the biggest year for profit sharing in Ford history. In total, $414 million will be paid as part of the profit-sharing scheme.
Now, it should be pointed out that a fair portion of Ford's Q4 profits were due to tax benefits, totaling $2.1 billion, according to Automotive News. Total profits would have also been higher, had there not been a significant recall on the Escape, as well as plant issues in South America.

Crowdsource funding push on to save historic Ford buildings

Detroit has no shortage of old, abandoned buildings, both within the city and in the surrounding communities. Few, though, have the historical significance of the old Ford Highland Park facility. Home to the very first moving assembly line, Highland Park was designed by the legendary Albert Kahn, and was one of the homes of the Model T.
Now, the Woodward Avenue Action Association is attempting to buy both the 40,000-square-foot admin building, which is located off the historic Woodward Avenue, and an 8,000-square-foot garage. The WAAA's goal is to convert the buildings into an automotive heritage center. The Detroit News spoke to the interim director of the WAAA, Deborah Schutt, who commented, "[Metro Detroit has] not been very good at telling our own story. So we've decided, let's pull everything together and tell our story."
The WAAA made an offer of $550,000 to buy the two buildings, and has $400,000 from the Michigan Department of Transportation and another $15,000 from the Michigan Economic Development Corporation. It's trying to raise a further $125,000 through crowd-sourcing, starting a campaign called "Five Dollars A Day," after old Hank Ford's $5-per-day wage for line workers.