2011 Ford F-150 4wd Supercrew 145" Xlt on 2040-cars

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Ford Focus ST checks into Jay Leno's Garage

In a change of pace from the high-end vehicles that often appear in Jay Leno's Garage, Ford sends its hottest hatchback (in the US, at least), the 252-horsepower Focus ST, to be featured on Leno's show. Accompanying the five-door hatch is its chief engineer, Jamal Hameedi.
Riding on stylish 18-inch wheels with summer tires and with a spoiler that doubles as a lunch tray, Hameedi and Leno walk us through the finer points of what makes the ST special, which also includes bigger brakes, torque vectoring, a manual transmission and, of course, 252 hp and 270 pound-feet of torque from the 2.0-liter EcoBoost four-cylinder engine, which is made possible by 21 psi of turbocharged boost.
Watch the video below to see what Leno thinks of the global Focus ST.

Stock Miata beats bunch of high-powered cars in wet 1/4-mile drag race

When is a stock, 167-horsepower Mazda MX-5 Miata quicker than a Chevrolet Corvette, Ford Mustang, Lamborghini Gallardo, Lotus Elise and a Porsche 911? When it's raining. Sort of.
Mazda Canada arranged a unique drag race to show off the fact that the Miata's optional power retractable folding hardtop can go from top-down to top-up in just 12 seconds flat. In this video, all six cars line up for a drag race, and it starts to rain (well, sort of - but you'll have to watch the video all the way to the end to see what we mean). The green flag is waved, and the timer starts as soon as the convertibles begin to put their tops up. But because the Miata's roof mechanism gets the car's roof back up a full 5.1 seconds quicker than the second-place car, the Mazda gets a serious advantage off the line for the actual drag race.
It's a fun video. And while we've spoiled the results (come on, the video was uploaded by Mazda, you knew the Miata was going to win), be sure to see how it all unfolds, below.

Ford E-Series chassis cabs and cutaways to survive mass Transit onslaught

In March 2013, Ford announced we'd be getting chassis cab and cutaway versions of the Transit. Since incoming Transit vans will soon be rolling over the grave of the E-Series van, it was assumed that all E-Series models would go six feet under as well. According to a report from PickupTrucks.com, however, that's not the case, the report claiming that the highly modifiable E-350 and E-450 chassis cab and cutaway versions will continue being produced in Avon Lake, Ohio "at least until 2020."
Being decades old, the be-cabbed E-Series platform has found its way under an army of heavy-duty shuttle buses, work truck and ambulances. Ford spokeswoman Jessica Enoch verified the production horizon, telling Autoblog that the particular E-Series configuration "are a higher GVWR than the Transit chassis cab and cutaway (available this summer), which is more Class 2 and a new segment for us." So there you have it.