The first consideration is that this car’s platform is body-on-frame. It’s an old structural concept that provides a very strong and ridged base for handling improvements. It has been replaced by what is called unibody. The Ford CVPI has a hydro-formed frame to which the body and suspension/drivetrain is attached. This provides a base structure that is kept at the lowest point of the vehicle and tends to therefore have a somewhat low center of gravity as the mass of the frame is topped by the body. Unibody cars were to provide advantages in terms of weight and provide control crumple zones for when collisions occur. Crumple zones were designed to sacrifice themselves in order to absorb energy from a collision prior to that energy impacting the passenger compartment itself. While the first unibody cars were definitely lower in weight

How about a chance to hang out with people who not only love cars, but love to drive them?  Oh yeah, and you get to tour some of the most fun, twisty roads in western North Carolina, visiting car museums, car collections, and enjoy some of the greatest restaurants in the area!  Tim Suddard and Classic Motorsports magazine continue to offer these experiences and much more.  Tim’s son Tom was the tour coordinator and co-host along with Nicole Suddard.  We met at the Renaissance in Asheville the afternoon before the fun started. Some of us had met at a previous tour and many of us were meeting for the first time. It was great to meet everyone and we were all excited about the next morning when the first day of the tour would start.  Monday morning we assembled in

Once a year about this time there is a modest, but interesting car show held on the main street of Cary, NC.  There are usually about 100 cars spanning the early 1900s right up to current models.  The street is blocked off and the cars arrive a couple of hours prior to the fans who will have four hours to walk the street and enjoy the local collection of automobiles.  It is impossible not to find a car that doesn’t catch your eye and possibly take you back to another time when you were either awaiting the time when you would be able to get a license to drive, or later when you and your friends dreamed about certain cars that you hoped one day to afford or at least drive.

Motortrend posted this review of the new Toyota built specifically for the problem of putting out EV fires.  Toyota 6×6 Fire Truck Blasts EVs Apart With Water Cannon (motortrend.com) While an ICE (internal combustion engine) vehicle can certainly have fires and do, it appears that EVs never have minor fires and it takes a lot of water to put them out when they do start burning.  I’m not trying to pick on EVs, it is just a fact of life that once a fire starts in an EV you will find it turning into a total loss.

All of the car manufactures have bought in to the idea that the future of personal transportation is electric and consequently have invested much to get their version of electric cars out and in the market.  Ford is certainly part of that and has already marketed and sold the Mustang Mach-E.  It is not a surprise that Ford Mustang fans have not been enamored with the offering and some even have felt betrayed by Ford’s using the Mustang nameplate much as they did for the Mustang-II   The Mustang almost no-one wants to talk about. From a performance standpoint it is not that bad since it’s 0-60 time is 3.8 seconds.  Not bad for a car that can weigh up to 4,890 pounds.  Part of that performance is one of EV motors endearing qualities of producing instant maximum torque.  The looks