Autoblog

The refreshened 2008 Ford Focus and Five-Hundred will both be rolled out with Bluetooth connectivity next year thanks to a partnership between the Blue Oval and Microsoft. That company from Redmond developed a system called Sync that includes not only a hands-free Bluetooth wireless system for cell phones, but also an in-vehicle operating system. Hooking up your RAZR to your car is one thing, but talk of an in-car operating system implies that the Sync system will become much more robust in what it can do at some point. Talk in the industry points to functions like not only dumping you MP3 files on a car's hard drive, but also connecting your car's computer system to local area networks or even mobile broadband networks so that a driver can check his email on the fly.

Ford wil be debuting the Sync system at the 2007 North American International Auto Show in Detroit and the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas simultaneously in early January. The system will later be rolled out across Ford's entire lineup.

We're curious to see how far beyond communications the Sync system will go, so we'll report back with details when they're available. Now, you may begin joking about Microsoft crashing your car.

[Source: Automotive News]

If Ford had made all the Right Moves from around the turn of the century to the present, it wouldn't need a Bold Move to pull it back from the brink. This post will imagine a Ford lineup of today that could have been had the Blue Oval been bold back then. Such a lineup, we believe, would have made Ford a top contender today in terms of product. Instead, for many reasons, Ford is forced to turn itself around while mired in a product lineup that's ill suited for today's tastes. So let's put on our imagination caps and envision the lineup that Ford took a pass on.

Consumers apparently were not waiting for the latest Consumer Report on what vehicles to purchase. According to Don Hammonds of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, the new full-sized Buick Lucerne, which replaces the LeSabre and the Park Avenue; and Ford's new mid-sized Fusion, one of two replacements for the Taurus (the other being the Five Hundred), are proving to be strong sellers for their respective automakers.
Sales of the Lucerne, for example, went from a paltry 285 in October to 2,724 in November and over 6,000 in January and 7,327 last month. And the Fusion had over 5% market share among the mid-sized sedans last month, as well.