DrivingEnthusiast.net Prior Blog Posts by Date DRIVING: that's what it's ALL ABOUT! A blog and website for automotive driving enthusiasts, featuring my interests as I see them: news and opinion about manufacturers of interest, significant enthusiast cars, and driving them hard and well. March 2008 Sun Mon Tue Wed Thu Fri Sat             1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31           Feb   Apr RSS Feed for DrivingEnthusiast.net About DrivingEnthusiast.net Index of prior posts by title Use this calendar to navigate thru prior blog postings by date. Saturday, March 22, 2008    MSNBC - stolen Mustang found after 38 years   MSNBC has a story today about how a Mustang stolen 38 years ago was finally recovered by police and brought to the attention of the original owner. It was put on a used car lot 38 years ago, and was sold to a teen in Long Beach who has been maintaining the car for all these years. And who is very sad when faced with the requirement to return it. Continue to MSNBC at link above... View and add comments: Trackback: Trackback Link and count:;[] Permalink for this post:  See similar posts in these categories: Ford Motor Corporation | Ford - Mustang Search for similar posts on the web: Google It! RSS Feed for DrivingEnthusiast.net About DrivingEnthusiast.net  A new European Capri?   Over at Car Spy Shots (follow the link in the title above), somebody has gotten a copy of Auto Bild from Germany. An article speculates that Ford will bring a new Capri to market in Europe and that this is allegedly it. If so, I hope not. It's clumsy, crude, and looks far to heavy from all angles. Lets face it, it's ugly. If there is to be a follow-on Capri from Europe (versus the US or Australia), then it should functionally follow the original rear wheel drive European Capri. And the form should be long hood and large greenhouse - a school of thought that says "form follows function". This school of design produces cars for people who want to be recognized for the technology and capabilities of the car they drive, not it's styling. The conceptual drawings above violate that idea. The original European Capris did not violate that principle, and they were very popular cars.  I'm a former owner of an original European Capri myself. You never know how these things get started, or where drawings like this come from. One of the "big three" monthly mags has published another drawing showing a curved side window just like the early European Capris. I suspect that there has been discussion inside Ford on whether or not to counter the new VW Scirocco. If so, then drawings could have been made... even leaked to gauge customer reaction. Well, I've offered my reaction and it's negative. FWD doesn't have the traction or poise (despite the MazdaSpeed3), AWD is too heavy and expensive for this market space. And Ford doesn't have a rear wheel drive platform to put this car on. That leaves the idea of a new Capri - a true Capri - impossible. View and add comments: Trackback: Trackback Link and count:;[] Permalink for this post:  See similar posts in these categories: Ford Motor Corporation | Ford - Concepts | Ford of Europe | Mercury - Capri Search for similar posts on the web: Google It! RSS Feed for DrivingEnthusiast.net About DrivingEnthusiast.net  Ford Profile and Mercury Premys   I finally found some images of the Ford Profile and Mercury Premys show cars. These Ford Mondeo variants were introduced at the 1994 NAIAS in Detroit. The Mercury Premys is very convential, it's simply a styling exercise for what became the Mystique. The Ford Profile is much more extensive. Besides the body kit, the car features the all-wheel drive system from the European Mondeo, as well as a supercharged 2.5l DOHC V-6 (a supercharged 3.0 DOHC V-06 was planned for Jaguar, but was cancelled) and an interior by Recaro. The concept was shown for several years, in a variety of colors including bright yellow. Ford actually wanted to build this car, but was unable to justify the high expense since the plan was for the Ford Contour to be a severely decontented Ford Mondeo. Several of the Mondeo features and options would be left out of the car when it made the trasnistion across the Atlanta and all wheel drive was one of them ( as was a diesel engine). Ford later relented and rebadged a slightly decontented FWD Mondeo ST200 as the SVT Contour. These images join several hundred others in the Concepts, Prototypes, and ShowCar area of the Ford section. You can view them there, as well as look thru the Ford- Concepts blog category as new ones are added. View and add comments: Trackback: Trackback Link and count:;[] Permalink for this post:  See similar posts in these categories: Ford Motor Corporation | Ford - Concepts | Mercury Search for similar posts on the web: Google It! RSS Feed for DrivingEnthusiast.net About DrivingEnthusiast.net  Shift Happens   A thought provoking video of the international reality we face. Shift Happens   (Windows Media file) Now that you know... what will you do? And for those of you who are scared and/or cry BS.. this video was made by the US Air Force and is required viewing. View and add comments: Trackback: Trackback Link and count:;[] Permalink for this post:  See similar posts in these categories: Aerospace & Militaria Search for similar posts on the web: Google It! RSS Feed for DrivingEnthusiast.net About DrivingEnthusiast.net
The DrivingEnthusiast Network is developed on
Microsoft Office Ultimate 2007	Microsoft Expression Studio 2	Microsoft Windows Vista Ultimate
© Copyright 2008 DrivingEnthusiast Network