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Ford, Chrysler and Mazda expand scope of Takata airbag recalls

The scope of the Takata airbag inflator recall is ballooning once again across the United States. Where Honda has elected to take its driver-side airbag campaign nationwide, Chrysler Group and Ford have now announced expanded regional actions to cover some passenger-side airbag inflators. Mazda is adding more regions, as well. For Chrysler Group, the campaign covers the inflators on 149,150 examples of the 2003-model-year Ram 1500, 2500 and 3500 pickups. The recall is limited to vehicles sold or ever registered in Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Louisiana, Mississippi, Texas and the territories of American Samoa, Guam, Puerto Rico, Saipan, and the Virgin Islands. The company will begin notifying affected customers on January 19. According to Chrysler's announcement of the action, the passenger side inflators in these trucks "are of a type that is not used in any of the other vehicles affected by Chrysler Group's regional field action." The automaker says that it's not aware of any actual failures or accidents in these pickups and even claims there are no "observed failures in laboratory testing of its airbag modules." The company is continuing to study the problem, though. Ford is taking a similar step by issuing a recall of inflators for 38,500 examples of the 2004-2005 Ranger and 2005-2006 Ford GT. The campaign only affects vehicles originally sold or ever registered in Florida, Hawaii, Puerto Rico and the US Virgin Islands. Certain zip codes of Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, Texas, Guam, Saipan and American Samoa are also covered. There's already precedent for passenger-side airbags to be covered under the Takata inflator recall. When many automakers announced campaigns in June, BMW, Chrysler, Ford, Honda, Mazda, Nissan and Toyota all included that side in some of their repairs. Subaru subsequently did, as well. In addition, Mazda is expanding the scope of its recall to add Florida, Puerto Rico, Hawaii, Saipan, Guam, American Samoa, US Virgin Islands, Georgia, Alabama, Louisiana, Mississippi and Texas to the affected areas. The company estimates that it has a total of 86,773 vehicles in need of repair. Mazda is also teaming with Toyota to begin independent testing of the Takata inflators. Scroll down to read all of the automakers' announcements of these newly expanded recalls. Statement: Air-Bag Inflators December 3, 2014 , Auburn Hills, Mich.

Ford to build next F-150, outgoing model concurrently?

Ford is rumored to be considering concurrent production for old and new F-150 models in a bid to minimize supply chain disruptions and inventory. Automotive News is reporting that the Blue Oval will build both the current F-150 and its replacement, which we showed you testing just last month, side by side for about half a year before switching over entirely to next-generation production.
As IHS Automotive analyst Mike Jackson told AN, "In order to ramp up, you have to retool...and that means you have to take capacity offline." Building both models alongside could allow Ford to cope with the still strong demand for the current F-150, while populating dealer supplies and working out supply chain kinks for the new model before making a full-time switch.
A loss of capacity when demand is so strong, even for a short period, could spell bad news for Ford, which nets an estimated 90 percent of its global profit on pickups and large SUVs. As AN states, Ford produces the F-150 in both Kansas City, Missouri and Dearborn, Michigan, which allows it to maintain some degree of flexibility in production. The new F-150 is expected to arrive at the 2014 North American International Auto Show as a 2015 model, with a design inspired by the Atlas Concept first shown at the Detroit Auto Show last January.

How that awesome Mustang R/C car chase vid was made

We've reported on a few R/C car chase videos in the past. One in particular that stands out as a favorite is Zach King's "The Cliché RC Action Chase." It featured a pair of Ford Mustang coupes racing through a cardboard city, plowing into outdoor patios and busting through construction zones. It was wonderfully creative and fun to watch, yet we know there was more to its creation than a bunch of guys fooling around with a camera one afternoon.
Turns out we were right, as evidenced by this video produced by Ford that takes us behind the scenes of Zach's creation. The young filmmaker explains why he chose the Mustang to star in his video, as well as how the cardboard sets were created, what equipment they used for shooting and what it was like when his video went viral. Ford found the young filmmaker and produced the followup as part of its Mustang Countdown video series, which will see a new video about the Mustang culture released every week until the original muscle car's anniversary on April 17, 2014.
Want to make an RC chase video of your own? Yeah, we do too. Watch the behind-the-scenes video below (you can refresh yourself on the mini feature film, too) before you get started.