Archive for Ford

Ford will be previewing the Ford iosis MAX Concept at the Geneva Motor Show which is set to kick start in a couple of hours time. Although the hot hatch concept is officially called a “compact multi-activity vehicle or MAV”, it is said to preview the next generation Ford Focus. It was also revealed that the next Ford Focus will also be sold in the United States, meaning the same vehicle for both continents. The front which highlights Ford’s Kinetic styling language does seem to look like the out going Focus which was recently launched for the Malaysian market.

With sliding rear doors, the iosis MAX Concept is also treated to a glass roof finish as well as a two-piece rear hatch opening. On the outside, it looks really good, the only thing I would prefer not to have is the huge lower grille up front, however the rest is spot on. The outrageous, edgy interior is treated to lightweight “floating” seats which are designed to look like humans.

The centre console surface acts as a touch-screen display to control the vehicle’s infotainment systems, like a three-dimensional version of the approach used on the latest touch-screen mobile phones. Information such as sat-nav instructions or details of an incoming phone call are displayed on the console when required using projectors mounted beneath the surface.

To control these functions, there are; a rotary control at the bottom of the console as well as a mouse-like controller in front of the central armrest. Even other controls such as indicators or wipers can be activated by voice. Images from the rear-view camera system are presented in a colour display in a separate binnacle at the top of the console. There is also ample space for the trunk area, while the rear seats can be folded down to increase the space.

Under the hood of hatch which sits on 19 inch wheels, there is a 178HP 1.6 liter EcoBoost 4 cylinder petrol power plant with turbocharging and direct injection which is said to be more efficient in terms of fuel economy by 20% over an engine of a similar displacement.

The engine is fitted with an auto-Start-Stop system and an intelligent alternator. It is also mated to a 6 speed Ford PowerShift double-clutch automated manual gearbox. No other performance figures were released but Ford mentioned that the engine releases 125 grams of harmful emissions per kilometer.

In the production form, expect front-hinged rear doors, and tamed head light and tail light design. Also expect the interior to be fully replaced by a more modest looking one. Thus far, it looks great! Continue reading to view a high-res image gallery.

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Fifth Gear, our good old U.K-based auto review television show has got its hands on the most powerful Focus ever, the 2009 Ford Focus RS and host Jason Plato, who also races in the British Touring Car Championships was given the task of bringing out the best, and the worst out of the powerful hot hatch in beautiful but challenging mountainous roads.

The Focus RS with its 300HP inline-5 “Duratec RS” power plant that is also capable of a massive 440Nm of torque received an excellent review overall. Plato also mentioned that the turbo lag which was evident actually helped improve the handling. A front wheel drive car with a 300HP engine should suffer from a great deal of torque steer during hard acceleration, something which was expected with this new RS.

However according to the Fifth Gear host, the slight turbo lag actually helped keep torque steer at bay, especially when exiting a corner with a heavy foot on the accelerator. Anyway I will say no more. Please continue reading to watch the 4 minute 11 second-long review.

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The new Ford Ranger facelift can already be seen at Ford Thailand’s website, so its only about time before the Thai-sourced pickup truck makes its way onto Malaysian soils. The styling for the Ranger facelift is of course derived from the Ranger Max show truck at the Thai Motor Expo last year. In Thailand, its powered by either a 2.5 liter or a 3.0 liter unit, putting out 143PS/330Nm and 156PS/380Nm respectively. Towing capacity is rated at 2,250kg and 3,000kg respectively. Both are DuraTORQ TDCi units with common rail direct injection and variable geometry turbocharger technology, mated to a 5-speed automatic transmission or a 5-speed manual transmission with dual-mass flywheel. Have a look after the jump for more detailed shots of the new Ranger.

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You wanna know why the pickup trucks we have in Malaysia that we already have difficulty parking sometimes are called “compact” trucks? Well, it’s because of trucks like the Ford F450, one of the few large pickups that you can find in the US. These shots of a Ford F450 were snapped by reader T P L at the Crown Casino in Melbourne, Australia. It’s seriously massive and probably used mostly for fleet purposes, though I’m sure there are some that’ll buy one for the purposes of going to a casino. This behemoth is powered by a range of engines from a 5.4 liter V8 petrol with 300 horsepower, a 6.8 liter V10 with 362 horsepower or a 6.4 liter V8 turbodiesel with 350 horsepower and a massive 650Nm of torque. Its sheer size and power makes our Mother Trucker Navara look tiny in comparison! Just see how it looks like next to the 7-Series in the photo above!

Look at more photos after the jump.

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Now this is quite interesting, an American Ford that at first sight looks rather appealing! Other than the Mustang of course, but even then the real eyeball-drawer is the supercharged Shelby GT500 version and not the plain vanilla version that barely manages to squeeze 210hp out of a massive 4.0 liter of displacement.

But anyway, back to this interesting Ford. It’s a large car, the Ford Taurus SHO (pronounced “show”). It’s size and wheelbase is in the range of the likes of the E60 5-Series. It’s also got Ford’s new Kinetic Design front end styling.

Under the hood is Ford’s EcoBoost engine, a twin turbocharged 3.5 liter V6 that churns out 365 horsepower at 5,500rpm and 475Nm of torque at 3,500rpm. This is where the SHO moniker gets its justification as it stands for Super High Output. This power gets sent through a torsen-equipped all-wheel drive system, through a Ford SelectShift automatic’s 6 gear ratios, which will also blip the engine on downshifts if needed.

Other than the two turbochargers, the EcoBoost engine also has direct fuel injection. Ford claims a relatively flat torque band between 1,500 to 5,500rpm, but peaking at 3,500rpm of course. The SHO car also gets new shocks, springs, stabilizer bars and strut bushings, all in the interests of improving handling and agility. An optional performance package on top of the basic Taurus SHO gives you performance brake pads, a sportier electric power steering system programming, a Sports mode for the traction control system to allow a little leeway before it kicks in, large 20 inch wheels with Goodyear Eagle F1 tyres and a 3.16:1 final drive ratio (the standard is 2.77:1).

Even the interior is done well, it’s mostly grey and black but the various usage of piano black surfaces make it look quite classy. The only thing that looks rather out of place is the unwieldy boxy steering wheel design. With advanced technologies such as the new EcoBoost engine in Ford’s stable now, you’d wonder why Ford keeps an ancient 2 valve per cylinder SOHC 4.0 liter V6 in service in the Mustang. I suppose it’s purely in the interests of cost-cutting and making the V6 Mustang a “baseline model”.

Look after the jump for a full hi-res gallery of the Taurus SHO.

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The facelifted Ford Focus is now here in Malaysia as a fully imported unit from Sime Darby Autoconnexxion. Unlike the pre-facelift models offered by Ford, the entire new range consisting of both a 4-door sedan (Focus Ghia) and a 5-door hatchback body (Focus Sport) are powered by the 145 PS 2.0 liter Duratec engine, mated to a 4-speed automatic transmission.

This marks the first new Ford in Malaysia styled with the new “Ford Kinetic Design” style, Ford’s take on a more dynamic look to its cars. Other than a new look for the outside, the door mirrors are also now larger and there are now signal indicators on the side mirrors. The rear track is now wider, which can improve stability and also improve aesthetics.

The interior is done up in a dark colour, which Ford claims is deliberate to minimize windscreen reflection in the bright countries of South East Asia. The dash center stack illumination lights up in red at night.

Set between the two large binnacled RPM meter and speedometer is a multi-info display LCD which can show time, outside temperature, trip meter, odometer, distance to empty, average speed and average fuel consumption. shame there’s no real time fuel consumption, a feature that has moved down the segments and is even available on the City and the Swift.

Other creature comforts include a slididing fron armrest (slides forward 80mm), two cupholders with butterfly lids, dual-zone air conditioning including rear air cond vents, a 6-way power adjustable driver’s seat and a premium leather interior. Safety features include ABS brakes and 2 airbags.

The price? RM 112,888 for the 5-door and RM 111,888 for the sedan. Prices are for Peninsular Malaysia, without road tax, insurance and registration.

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The next generation Ford Focus due in 2010 will spawn an electric-only version that will share its platform. This new Focus platform is important for Ford as it will be a global platform, which means the ancient platform American market Focus (shown above) will also be updated. The Ford electric vehicle project has its roots back when its supplier Magna International secretly converted a Focus into an electric car without Ford’s knowledge and surprised them with it. Ford loved the car, and Project M began, a joint venture between Magna and Ford. The new Focus-based electric vehicle which is set to launch in 2011, a year after Chrysler and Nissan unveils their own pure electric vehicles, and after GM launches its Chevrolet Volt extended-range EV.

Unlike EREVs like the Volt which move with an electric motor on pure electric mode but use an on-board internal combustion engine to generate electricity for the electric motor to go further (rather than drive the car directly through a gearbox), the Ford EV will not have a range extender and will be able to go about 160km on a single charge, which Ford says is enough for the average American motorist.

Ford has revealed more information on the powerplant in the Ford Focus RS engine bay. The inline-5 “Duratec RS” engine puts out 305 PS between 6,500rpm to 7,050rpm (redline) and a massive 440Nm of torque between 2,300 and 4,500rpm, a good 40Nm more at the peak than the BMW M3. I believe one of the intentions of the press release are to dispel any talk that Ford simply took the easy way out and “rechipped” the Duratec ST engine to produce more power, as many had expected something more exciting such as maybe a twin turbo version with all-wheel drive.

“There was never an intention to try to ‘chip’ the ST engine. We evaluated several approaches using the ST engine and none gave us the combination of power delivery, character and durability that we wanted, so we opted to create an RS Duratec, using the ST unit as our base,” said Ford Team RS powertrain manager Len Urwin.

The engine gets a revised cylinder head gasket, metal-sprayed cylinder bores that are more durable, new pistons and a bespoke camshaft profile and conrods which allows bigger small-end bearings. The turbo has been uprated to a Borg Warner K16 that peaks out at 1.4 bar, double that of the Focus ST’s 0.7 bar boost. Ford says the turbo size was carefully picked to match the “bottom end responsiveness” of the Focus ST. The integration of the turbo to the exhaust manifold had to be strategically configured to optimise crash performance and minimize revisions to other components such as exhaust system, and oil and water pipes. It also has to take into account the car’s 20mm lower subframe.The engine’s larger intercooler can reduce air temperatures from 160 degrees Celsius at the compressor, to a maximum of 60 degrees Celsius at the intercooler outlet, in ambient temperatures of up to 38 degrees Celsius.

Urwin adds that Ford wanted to prevent the engine from feeling like it runs out of steam at the top end, something that turbo-ed engines with very flat torque curves sometimes exhibit. There is just so much of rush right from the start that you don’t feel the momentum of things picking up all the way until the end. Ford wanted to “reward” drivers who took the Duratec RS to the redline. In addition, the car’s rev needles can bounce up to 7,050rpm for about 3 seconds before it is rev-limited to 6,500rpm.

The 6-speed manual shares the same ratios as the Focus ST but has modifications to the bearing and clutch housing as well as had its differential strengthened to take the extra power and torque. The overall gearing is 1% longer than the ST thanks to the car’s larger tyres (larger rolling circumference), and this results in the RS being able to touch 100km/h in 2nd gear. To help manage 440Nm to the front wheels which also have to steer the car, Ford has employed the use of a Quaife helical LSD. This LSD is based on the one in the original 5-speed Focus RS from the year 2002, but revised for the new 6-speed 2009 Ford Focus RS. It now has a sixth planet gear and is stronger, with a more subtle intervention and torque transfer.

I’m sure when you look at the RS, you’ll notice the large gaping front bumper intake. This is actually part of the cooling requirement, in fact 80% of the engine’s external cooling is thanks to this front grille aperture, even down to the mesh density. The car also gets a 25% larger radiator, anda lso has a larger 14 plate engine-mounted water-cooled oil cooler. The bonnet louvres are also there for a reason, to help idle cooling especially after a high-speed run.

At the front, Ford uses a RevoKnuckle suspension. While regular suspension knuckles are a one-piece design; RevoKnuckle has instead two separate pieces. In place of the regular, inverted ‘L’-shaped lower suspension mount, RevoKnuckle features a ‘C’-shaped mount, connected to both the wheel hub, via two arms and to the strut, which is attached at its top. Apparently this allows greater flexibility in tuning suspension geometry to avoid torque steer. This is sort of a hybrid between a MacPherson strut and double wishbone design, which is good as it is cheaper than a double wishbone design.

Of course, you have to pay for performance not only in the price tag of a car, but naturally more power will burn more fuel so the Focus RS also has a larger fuel tank at 62 liters up from 55 liters in the Focus ST.

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Just months after the wet-clutch 6-speed Powershift dual clutch transmission was released by Ford (and available in Thailand on the Ford Focus TDCi), Ford has announced a new dry clutch version, which will be installed in small cars in North America. The dry clutch transmission is lighter as it does not require hydraulic pumps and fluids, cooling lines and external cooling, unlike its wet clutch counterpart which has clutches bathed in oil.

The Powershift transmission is essentially a manual transmission with two clutches, but has the following algorithms to help it perform as smoothly as a real automatic:

• Neutral coasting – The clutches will automatically disengage during coasting when the brakes are applied to reduce parasitic losses, helping with fuel economy.
• Precise clutch slip control – this improves NVH and smoothness at low engine speeds.
• Creep mode – Some twin clutch transmission do not creep. Creeping is when your automatic transmission car moves forward automatically without having to press the accelerator as long as you let go of the brakes.
• Hill assist – Automatically maintains brake pressure on slopes to prevent the vehicle from rolling back on a gradient surface.

Ford says it wants its vehicles to go nearly 100% 6-speed by the year 2013, and a large number of this will be twin clutch applications. The trucks will probably stick with a torque converter automatic, but with 6 ratios.

It’s easy to imagine how a monster like the 2010 Ford Shelby Mustang GT500 will perform on the track under heavy pressure from the driver, but how will the beast go under normal driving conditions? What will the people walking along Asian Heritage Row or Jalan P. Ramlee hear when you roll down the street with your machine? What kinds of sounds will the supercharged V8 produce in response to your clutch, shift and throttle work? The video after the jump might be one of the most boring performance car videos in the world, but it also answers the questions above somewhat. Watch the video after the jump.

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