Autoblog

NOTE: After reading some of the excellent comments on this post, we decided to test this again from 30 miles away... and it didn't work. We're going to retest at a different location but similar distance to see what gave us the positive test. Stay tuned.


About a month ago my brother sent me an email explaining that if a friend or family member has the second key fob for your car, you can call them up on your cell phone, ask them to hold the key fob up to the phone, press the unlock button, and your car door will unlock. In theory, the sound waves from the key fob, which are unintelligible to the human ear, will be transmitted via the cell phone, and the doors will unlock. Well, we've seen enough spam emails before that were full of it, but we decided to see for ourselves if this works.

When we tested this theory, we were stunned to find out that it actually works. I was so excited that I pulled out the wife and daughter outside to shoot a quick video on the front lawn. Before getting this on camera, we tested it five times, and it worked every time but one. There was a lot of traffic during the one failed test, so our best guess is that the noise from the passing cars negated the sound from the key fob signal.

Mad props to the wife for getting eaten alive by bugs and keeping the camera still at the same time (for the most part). Hit the jump to check it out, it's pretty damn cool. Test this out with a friend or spouse, too, and let us know if it worked for you.

Making both a bold and simple move, Ford's North American boss Mark Fields confirmed this morning what we already knew, that the Taurus and Sable brands will be resurrected for 2008.

Fields, delivering the keynote address at the Chicago Auto Show this morning, said the Ford Five Hundred nameplate will be dropped in favor of the venerable Taurus badge. The Freestyle crossover vehicle will also be renamed the Taurus X, and Mercury Montego will switch to the Sable nameplate. All three vehicle will be introduced to the press later in the day, though we were first introduced to the new "Taurus" in Detroit.

Fields said only four in 10 consumers were aware that Ford offered a vehicle called the Five Hundred. Yet the Taurus nameplate, which was killed last year, had built up 20 years of strong brand recognition and was recognized by 80 percent of shoppers. Fields also said Taurus was Ford's third-best-known brand behind F-Series and Mustang. During the early '90s, the Taurus was America's best-selling car five years running. About seven million Taurus models were sold in 21 years, and Ford estimates nearly 3.5 million are still on the road.

Check out more of our thoughts, a complete transcript of Mark Fields' speech, and VIDEO of him delivering the announcement after the jump.

Click the image above for the Autoblog Five-Hundred gallery

In the news, at the water cooler, and in your favorite auto magagine, there is no shortage of advice for Ford Motor Company. Advice for new engines, better marketing, and rear drive architectures come flowing in at all angles. Most of the advice seems to center around the need to balance design, safety, horsepower, and business realities to make vehicles that you and I will want to buy. But vehicle names? A recent Detroit Free Press article is one of many that seems to think name recognition is perhaps more vital than it really is. As we reported today, it looks like Ford is listening to the calls for the recasting of the Taurus name, after all. In the end, do we really care what the vehicle is called? We probably care a lot more about what the vehicle can do and how it looks.

When Allan Mulally took over at Ford, he found himself wondering why the company would spend hundreds of millions of dollars over 20 years to build the Taurus name only to drop it because it didn't start with an F. The Five Hundred very well could have been the Taurus from the start, but it wasn't. Lets be honest, the Taurus wasn't the Taurus for almost half its lifespan. We loved it, then we liked it, then finally, we rented it. The product was stale. The name got stale too, mostly because it became synonymous with Hertz, so Ford decided to drop it.

Keep reading for more thoughts on what's in a name.

[Source: Detroit Free Press]

We thought this thing would be dead by now; what with the Edge, Fairlane, and next-generation Explorer all occupying CUV Parking Only spaces in Ford's garage. Nay, the Freestyle soldiers on for 2008, emboldened by a new face, set to debut at the Chicago Auto Show. The cosmetic surgery is in line with Ford's revisions to the Freestyle's platform-mate, the Five Hundred. Overall, the look doesn't even progress beyond conservative, which isn't necessarily a bad thing. Some of the innocuousness of the original Freestyle has been eradicated by more jowly fenders and the new corporate grille. We like it, it's more Ford-y, less bland. Power is rumored to be provided by the new 3.5-liter V6, with the joint-venture 6 speed transaxle taking the ratio shuffling. The original Freestyle was a nice vehicle that Ford only halfheartedly promoted. The 3.0 and CVT were more than adequate for everyday driving and the chassis and interior space were miles ahead of truck-based "family cars." We're expecting to see interior updates as well, be it materials, fit and finish, packaging, or all of the above. With more snort and a more conventional transmission, not to mention the squaring-up of the nose, we hope Ford gets behind the Freestyle. Sure, now we sound like dorks, but it really is a good family car, even if it is a station wagon in denial.

[Source: LLN]

We've been wrapped up in our own opinions about Mercury too much around here. So much so, that when we saw shots of Mercury's Meta One mules running around Detroit again, we instantly assumed the project was back on the front burner. Apparently that's not the case. A few of our sources have informed us that the mules running around Detroit right now are the same ones we saw at the beginning of the year before the car was cancelled. Since the Freestyle will be getting the company's new 3.5-liter V6 powerplant, Ford decided to put the Mercury mules back in service jut to test the engines on the Freestyle platform, and apparently mess with our heads. Mission accomplished. Sorry Mercury, no seven-passenger CUV love for you.

[Source: a little birdy]

The Winding Road staff had their camera phones at the ready when they found themselves being overtake on Michigan roads by what appears to be a prototype for a Mercury-badged version of the Ford Freestyle crossover. Apparently these mules have been seen around the Detroit area a lot in the past week. Though Ford has said in the past that Mercury would not get a version of the Freestyle, Ford has decided to continue producing the crossover with a Blue Oval badge, so a Mercury version based on the Meta One concept might still be on the table. Though we can't see it, the Winding Road folk say the mule has Mercury's signature waterfall grille, and we're guessing Mercury might use the name Magellan for such a 7-passenger crossover.

Allow me to refer back to comments made in a previous post when I said a Mercury version of the Freestyle should be made, but also that Ford should discontinue the Freestyle. This would give Mercury an actual vehicle of its own, as well as free up some breathing room for the production version of the Fairlane concept that's a couple years out. Plus, Mercury could offer the Monticello/Magellan right out of the box with Ford's new 3.5-liter V6 to kick things off, just as the Freestyle should have been launched but wasn't.

[Source: Winding Road]

A favorite adage of the particularly deadline-oriented is, "80 percent on-time is better than 100 percent late." The idea behind it is that you'd better turn something in when it's due, even if it's half-assed. Good thing for Ford that turnaround guru Mark Fields isn't so deadline-oriented.

Among the delays and cancellations, Automotive News says, are the following:

The Ford Mustang will get a mid-cycle refresh a year later than planned in 2009.

SVT has pared its future offerings down to just two (confirmed, anyway).

Mercury's Freestyle-like crossover has been killed (again).

Automotive News also reports that Fields has pushed off a Fiesta-like subcompact positioned below the Focus for two more years in the interests of making sure it has bold, American styling. The drawback to that is the fact that similar vehicles made by Nissan, Honda and Toyota are already on the market, but Ford's take on it is that European styling and bland little boxes just aren't design cues that work in the U.S.

[Source: Automotive News]

The demise of Mercury's Ford Freestyle variant appears to have been greatly exaggerated. Or, that's what this new spyshot would have us believe, anyway. The fine folks at BlueOvalNews snapped up a few shots of this distinctly Mercury-esque mule running around on public roads recently, and the waterfall grille and wheel choice appears to give lie to Ford's Anne Stevens' (Chief Operating Officer for the Americas) statement at the Chicago Auto Show that Dearborn is nixing the crossover variant as part of The Way Forward.

Of course, Ford could be using an existing prototype for other evaluation purposes, but the whole thing seems a bit fishy, no?

[Source: BlueOvalNews.com]

We reported some time ago that Ford was rumored to have been thinking about cancelling its Freestyle crossover less than a couple of short years after it first hit the market. Whispers from within the Blue Oval were saying the Freestyle’s name would live on but the vehicle would not.

Autoweek is now reporting that Ford has told its suppliers the Freestyle will remain in the company’s product portfolio at least long enough to enjoy a front-end refreshening in early 2007.

Ford’s stable of crossovers has gotten a bit crowded with the debut of the Edge CUV that is available with the company's new Cyclone 3.5L V6. Will the Freestyle, not mention the Five-Hundred and Mercury Montego, enjoy the added oomph offered by Ford’s new 250-hp V6? Time will tell, but at least the Freestyle will be around to find out.