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Ford faces class-action lawsuit for selling vehicles without brake override systems

A total of 20 Ford customers are suing the automaker in a class-action lawsuit for selling vehicles "vulnerable to unintended acceleration." According to Reuters, the suit names 30 models built between 2002 and 2010 with electronic throttle control systems but without a brake override system. Those include the 2004-2012 F-Series pickups and the 2005-2009 Lincoln Town Car. Adam Levitt, a partner with the law firm of Grant & Eisenhofer says the plaintiffs in the case want "to be compensated for their economic losses by having overpaid for cars that contained defects." Levitt contends that the plaintiffs would not have bought their vehicles or paid less for them had they known there was no brake override system in place.
Ford began installing brake override systems in its vehicles beginning in 2010. In response to the lawsuit, Ford has pointed to research by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration that indicated that unintended acceleration is mostly caused by driver error, saying in a statement that, "NHTSA's work is far more scientific and trustworthy than work done by personal injury lawyers and their paid experts."
Belville et al v. Ford Motor Co. will be heard in US District Court in the Southern District of West Virginia.

Chip Ganassi Racing switches to the Ford EcoBoost-powered Riley Daytona Prototype

Chip Ganassi Racing with Felix Sabates (CGRFS) announced yesterday at Ford's SEMA press conference that it will field a Ford-Riley Daytona Prototype with the 3.5-liter EcoBoost V6 in the 2014 United SportsCar Championship (USCC). CGRFS is the second team to commit to the new Ford-Riley car, behind Michael Shank Racing (which has already used the racecar to break a 26-year-old top-speed record at Daytona International Speedway).
"Over the last 10 seasons we have been able to experience a great deal of success in Grand-Am," Chip Ganassi says, "and now with the dawn of the new United SportsCar Championship we feel that Ford power will be a key ingredient to writing the next chapter of our sports car program."
In the last Grand-Am season, CGRFS raced a BMW-Riley Daytona Prototype. The team has won seven Daytona Prototype championships, all in the past ten years. Scott Pruett and Memo Rojas return as the team's prototype co-drivers, and will attend their maiden race in the Ford-Riley at the Rolex 24 at Daytona in January.

Ford talking unibody Ranger replacement

Now here's some welcome news. Car and Driver reports Ford is seriously mulling a replacement for the recently deceased Ranger, but the successor to the compact pickup's throne may not look anything like what we've seen from the nameplate in the past.
While speaking at the 2013 Chicago Auto Show, Doug Scott, marketing manager for Ford Trucks, said there's still a market for a smaller pickup, but that buyers expect to see a larger differentiation between the smaller utility vehicles and their full size counterparts in price, capability and fuel economy.
According to Scott, that means a vehicle with a payload capacity of around 1,000 pounds paired with a towing capacity of 3,000 pounds and "a dramatic reduction in fuel consumption." But the biggest piece of that recipe is the price tag, and Scott says to keep the MSRP far enough away from the already cheap F-150, the answer could come in the form of a unibody design. Scott says target customers in this market don't care whether the truck has a traditional frame or not, so long as it's tough enough to do the job and has the capability they need.