2003 Ford Mustang Mach I Coupe 2-door 4.6l on 2040-cars

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United States drivers buying fewer Mexican-made cars

Crossovers and pickup trucks are not only growing in market share, they're also more profitable than cars. A crossover on the same platform as a sedan retails for thousands more, despite similar components. It's one of the reasons we've seen automakers rapidly shifting production of their sedans and hatchbacks to Mexico, where cheap labor preserves the thin profit margins on these inexpensive vehicles. But as the market continues to shift in the United States, Mexico is getting burned by its lack of product diversity. The country's auto exports, which are heavy on cars, suffered a 16-percent drop last month, Automotive News reports. In total, year-over-year exports fell from 233,515 to 197,020 last month, while year-to-date exports are down by 7.4 percent, from 922,029 to 854,118. The number one culprit? America – which usually accounts for 75 percent of Mexico's exports – and its appetite for crossovers and pickup trucks bolstered by cheap gas prices. While Mexico does build some light truck models – AN specifically calls out the Ram 2500, Honda HR-V, GMC Sierra, and Toyota Tacoma as export leaders – the vast majority of vehicles rolling out of its factories are sedans and hatchbacks. In fact, the three biggest drops in Mexican exports came from companies whose south of the border factories only build cars – Ford (Fusion/Lincoln MKZ and Fiesta), Mazda (Mazda3), and Volkswagen (Golf and Jetta). Mexican Automotive Industry Association President Eduardo Solis told AN the export shortfall will likely be sorted out sooner rather than later, thanks to a pair of new factories – a Kia car factory and an Audi SUV plant – that are coming online by year's end. The two facilities will add around 100,000 vehicles to the country's export totals, which Solis said should leave the industry on the verge of breaking another export record in 2016. But how sustainable will these record-breaking years be? Slapping an "Hecho en Mexico" sticker on a new German SUV won't be enough to change the fact that Mexico's product mix is tilted too heavily towards body styles that are not growing in volume. Mexico's record-breaking export years probably aren't at an end, but we'd argue they're certainly under threat. News Source: Automotive News - sub. req.Image Credit: Omar Torres / AFP / Getty Images Plants/Manufacturing Ford GMC Honda Mazda RAM Volkswagen Truck Crossover SUV Mexico

2024 CES Mega Photo Gallery: Honda concepts, a VinFast truck and flying cars galore

The 2024 rendition of CES is coming to a close, and per usual, it was full of all the funky, futuristic tech the show is long known for. It’s also full of cars and legitimately forward-thinking tech related to cars, and we were on the ground to see it all and bring photos to you in this Mega Gallery.  A boatload of manufacturers attended and made big reveals, from the Star Wars-like Honda concept cars to a pickup truck from VinFast, the sort of debuts we got to see ran the gamut. Of course, there were plenty of reveals and vehicles on the floor that were even more outlandish than concepts from traditional OEMs like Honda and Mercedes. Check out this flying Xpeng car as an example. Or perhaps the flying Mansory car. Apparently, flying cars were a theme. Anyway, make sure you scroll down to check out the various reveals and photos of the cars and technologies revealed at the 2024 CES in our barrage of galleries. Honda 0 Series Honda 0 Series saloon 1 View 26 Photos VinFast Wild pickup VinFast Wild 10 View 10 Photos VinFast VF3 VinFast VF3 1 View 4 Photos VW GTI Prototype with AI-enhanced infotainment CES 2024: New Volkswagen GTI with AI-Enhanced Infotainment View 17 Photos Kia PBV Concept Kia PBV Concept platform View 28 Photos Sony Honda Mobility Afeela concept Afeela by Sony Honda Mobility View 5 Photos Hyundai Mobion Concept Hyundai Mobion Concept CES 2024 View 6 Photos Mullen Five RS Mullen 2 View 14 Photos Mansory Empower concept Mansory Empower concept View 14 Photos Hyundai Supernal S-A2 eVTOL Hyundai Supernal S-A2 View 13 Photos XPeng Aeroht eVTOL Flying Car XPeng Aeroht eVTOL?Flying Car View 6 Photos Verge TS Ultra verge-ts-ultra-ces-2024-electric-motorcycle-01 View 17 Photos Horwin Senmenti Maxi Scooter Range Horwin Senmenti 0 View 12 Photos BMW Teleoperated Valet BMW iX controlled with Remote Valet View 15 Photos Mercedes-Benz MB.OS infotainment Mercedes-Benz MB.OS infotainment system View 9 Photos Lamborghini Telemetry X Lamborghini Telemetry X View 5 Photos Related video: Green Motorsports CES BMW Ford Honda Hyundai Kia Lamborghini Mercedes-Benz Volkswagen Volvo Green Automakers Green Culture Technology Infotainment Smartphone Autonomous Vehicles Commercial Vehicles Concept Cars Polestar Infrastructure

Ford overlooks the Big Apple in the 2015 Mustang Convertible [w/video]

Ford has done it again. Like in April of 1964, there is once again an all-new Mustang Convertible sitting on the observation deck of New York City's Empire State Building. This has been in the making for a little while, with the first report that Ford would recreate the sky-high publicity stunt coming out a few weeks back.
The process of getting the Mustang up there wasn't exactly easy. A Troy, MI-based company chopped up the new droptop, a necessary evil to get the Mustang on the Empire State Building's only freight elevator that runs to the 86th floor observation deck. But it was slightly more involved than just taking the car apart. The company, DST, built a mockup of the ESB's freight elevators, and then practiced its cuts on a second pre-production Mustang Convertible (measure twice, cut once).
The result of all this work are the images you see above. Yes, sitting in the crisp, morning air of midtown Manhattan, over 1,000 feet up, is this brilliant, Triple Yellow Mustang. Take a look up top for our gallery of images from today's event. You can also scroll down for videos and images of the process leading up to the ESB debut.