The Sport Trac Adrenalin has succumbed to Ford's new restructuring plan. SVT, once planning on building 5,000 of the souped-up SUV's, is now concentrating solely on the GT500.

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Marcus Gronholm driving a 2006 Ford WRC Focus RS has started the season with a win at Monte Carlo and is currently leading in Sweden. The impressive new car is just the tool for the former champion to challenge Sebastien Loeb.

(That is, supercharges it.)

How many of you have thought "Yeah, the Esperante is cool, but it just doesn't have enough power" to yourselves? Me neither.

What's in a name? It's everything to some motor vehicle manufacturers. The latest episode of toil and trouble in the automotive industry surrounds the combination of 2 three-lettered vehicle names, the MKX (from Lincoln) and the MDX (from Acura).

Although I have always thought competition was a good thing. I personally cannot stand the fact that DMC will slap an SRT or HEMI badge on anything and everything.

DMC are so hot to capitalize on their past that they have muddied the waters.

"The Way Forward contains some strong medicine for the North American business," Bill Ford said.

"Our plants are running at 75 percent capacity use," Fields said. "That is clearly unsustainable."

Ford Motor Co.'s "Way Forward" plan calls for shutting down seven assembly plants and seven parts plants and cutting between 25,000 and 30,000 factory jobs by 2012.

With the lackluster sales of the Five Hundred sedan, Ford is heading in a new direction.

The new design can be seen in the new for 2006 Fusion. The Fusion design was changed after the overwhelming response to the 2003 427 concept car pictured here.

Full Automotive News article.

Ford adds 3 very large players to its list of official part suppliers suppliers.

Although it has not been disclosed at this time what specific parts will be supplied to Ford Motor Company, the possibilities are endless. From TRW's performance engine technologies and Bosch's latest and greatest electronic wizardry to ZF's line of world class trans-axles. The addition of these three suppliers will help Ford stay ahead of the ever changing world of automotive technologies.

TRW Automotive Technologies TRW.com

ZF Driveline and Chassis Technologies ZF.com

Bosch Electronics Bosch.com

Source - Automotive News

With the announcement that Lincoln will discontinue the LS after only 6 years, the latest buzz around town is that the LS will be replaced with the MKS concept car seen at the Detroit NAIAS.