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Ford 2Q profit drops 86% as it restructures overseas

DEARBORN, Mich. (AP) — Ford's net profit tumbled 86% in the second quarter due largely to restructuring costs in Europe and South America. Net income for the April-through-June period dropped to $148 million, or 4 cents per share. Without the charges the company made 28 cents per share. Revenue was flat at $38.9 billion. On average, analysts surveyed by FactSet expected earnings 31 cents per share on revenue of $38.49 billion. Chief Financial Officer Tim Stone says the company had charges of $1.2 billion as it moved to close factories in Europe and South America. He says Ford already is seeing an impact from its global fitness measures that included a reduction of 7,000 white-collar workers. Ford, which released numbers after the markets closed Wednesday, says its results include a $181 million valuation loss on an investment in a software company, trimming 4 cents off adjusted earnings per share. Its stock fell 6.3% in after-hours trading to $9.68. Stone said Ford is in the early stages of its restructuring, but already is seeing improvement in some regions. Free cash flow also improved by 80% to $2.1 billion in the first half of the year, he said. "We're already starting to see some early benefits," he said. "A lot of work to do." The company expects improvement in the second half of the year as more new big SUVs hit dealerships and more of the restructuring takes hold. Ford on Wednesday forecast pretax adjusted earnings of $7 billion to $7.5 billion for all of 2019, compared with $7 billion last year. The company previously had only said that pretax earnings would improve. Full-year adjusted earnings per share are forecast to be $1.20 to $1.35, up from $1.30 in 2018. Previously it did not give per-share guidance. Ford's U.S. sales fell nearly 5% in the second quarter, according to the Edmunds.com auto pricing site, as the company exited most of its passenger car business. But Stone said sales of the new Ford Ranger small pickup offset much of that as its share of the small truck segment rose 14%. Edmunds, which provides content for The Associated Press, said Ford's average vehicle sale price rose 2.8% to $41,328 during the quarter. In North America, Ford's biggest profit center, pretax earnings fell 3% to just under $1.7 billion, which the company blamed on switching its Chicago factory to build new versions of midsize SUVs.

2014 Ford Fiesta ST

Concentrated ST Formula Proves Just As Potent
I'm not the jealous type... usually. But I will fully admit to being somewhat of a Pouty Polly when I read executive editor Chris Paukert's report after driving the then-new 2013 Ford Focus ST through the impossibly pretty southern French Alps region last June. I feel like a broken record saying this yet again, but hot hatchbacks hold a special place in my heart. And while I'm always giddy to drive any sort of small, turbocharged three- or five-door at home in Detroit, my jealousy was indeed piqued after hearing Paukert tell about the challenging yet breathtaking roads he encountered while driving the flamin' yellow Focus. You know, the sort of roads that, from above, look like carelessly drizzled lines of icing on the frosted Alpen caps.
Several months later, I found myself piloting a Focus ST just west of metro Detroit, pitting it head-to-head against one of Autoblog's perennial favorite cars, the Volkswagen GTI. It was fantastic - enough so that I fully stand behind my statement that in terms of balls-out performance, the Focus ST cannot be beat as far as today's front-wheel-drive hatches are concerned.

Hennessey unleashes 2015 HPE700 supercharged Ford Mustang

Thanks to the 2015 Dodge Challenger SRT Hellcat there is a new magic number in the muscle car world - 707. To raise eyebrows these days in the power war, a vehicle needs to match or preferably exceed that palindromic figure. The tuners over at Hennessey took a look at it for their 2015 HPE700 Mustang and decided to go one better. Well, ten actually, because they bestowed their latest creation with 717 horsepower and 632 pound-feet of torque.
The HPE 700 Mustang takes the standard Mustang GT with its 5.0-liter V8 and turns up the power a few hundred notches with a Roots-type supercharger running at 7.25 psi. Hennessey claims that this boosted 'Stang can rocket to 60 miles per hour in about 3.6 seconds and cover the quarter-mile in 11.2 seconds at 131 mph. For those keeping score at home, those figures are very similar to Challenger Hellcat.
To cope with all of the added boost, the engine gets a high-flow throttle body, upgraded injectors, new fuel pump, stainless steel exhaust and Hennessey's calibration for the engine management. Pricing for the package is $59,500, including the base 2015 Mustang GT, but the company is limiting production to 500 units for the 2015 model year. Founder John Hennessey told Autoblog that he has already received about a dozen orders for them.