2014 Ford Fusion Se on 2040-cars

Auto blog

Ford, Toyota clean up in Best Car For The Money Awards

The U.S. News Best Cars for the Money Awards picks winners by looking at the average transaction price, five-year total cost of ownership, the regard a car has from the automotive press, reliability figures from J.D. Power and Associates and safety data from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration and the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety. The result, according to the magazine, is "the best combination of critical acclaim and long-term value."
Ford nabbed six of the 21 categories that received awards this year, the Focus, Fusion, Fusion Hybrid, Taurus, Escape and Edge getting trophies. Toyota and its Lexus and Scion sub-brands took another five, the Tacoma and Tundra owning the two categories given to pickup trucks. The other ten awards were split between Honda with three, Buick with two, and one each for Subaru, BMW, Hyundai, Chevrolet and Mazda.
Follow the link to see all the winners and read about why they were chosen.

Who sold the most heavy-duty pickups in 2012? PickupTrucks.com investigates

Domestic manufacturers enjoyed a good year for heavy-duty pickup sales in 2012. PickupTrucks.com has taken a close look at exactly how those sales broke down between each manufacturer and between three-quarter and one-ton pickups. Ford sold some 67,786 F-250 Super Duty models last year with the Chevrolet Silverado 2500 HD falling just behind at 56,359 units. The Ram 2500 HD came in third at 41,918, while the GMC Sierra 2500 HD earned itself fourth place with 27,616 deliveries. While Ford held onto the top spot in the one-ton market, Ram easily nailed down second place by selling more 3500 HD models last year than General Motors sold Silverado 3500 HD and Sierra 3500 HD trucks combined.
So, did GM manage to sell more trucks than Ford with its two brands? Very nearly. Ford sold a total of 119,338 heavy-duty pickups to GM's 111,555. Ram, meanwhile, moved a distant 77,583. But perhaps more interesting is the diesel take rate in this segment. PickupTrucks.com says 80 percent of all domestic one-ton trucks roll from the dealer lot with a turbo-diesel under the hood. Head over to the site for a closer look at the breakdown.

Lincoln MKC will be renamed the Corsair in 2021, probably

Lincoln will be renaming its MKC crossover, calling it the Corsair instead. Automotive News is reporting that the recently trademarked, yet storied Ford model name Corsair will be affixed on the 2021 model year crossover. The report says Ford has already told its U.S. dealers about the name at an Orlando meeting last month. Ford has a long history with the Corsair nameplate in the States and abroad: Most recently, it has been in use in Australia in the early 1990s, in the UK in the 1960s, and before that Ford offered an Edsel Corsair in the late 1950s. Even if an Edsel connection might not be the best possible thing for a Ford product, let alone a Lincoln, it might serve the crossover well as Ford moves to ditch the MK naming convention it's used for Lincoln for the past decade. Still, the manufacturer is said to have cautioned dealers it might opt out of using the Corsair name before production time. At the same meeting, Ford reportedly showed the next-generation Escape, the Explorer, a battery electric crossover dubbed the Mach 1, a yet-unnamed small SUV (which might be the Bronco) , and a new Lincoln Continental complete with suicide doors. The MKC will still receive a refresh for next year, retaining its letters-name for a couple of years before the bigger redesign for 2021. Currently, the MKC is the strongest-selling Lincoln product in China, and it brings in numerous new Lincoln customers there. In the U.S. it's outsold by the MKX crossover and is neck-and-neck with the MKZ sedan.