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Ford's J Mays feels vindicated by Fusion reception

It's hard to think back now, but the same man overseeing the design of the 2013 Ford Fusion also presided over a rather lackluster period in Ford design, highlighted by vehicles like the Five Hundred and Freestyle. With the redesigned Fusion receiving high praise, J Mays tells Automotive News that he feels vindicated from criticisms suggesting he's not a daring enough designer.
When Mays took over as lead of design in 1997, he admits to having quite an ego ("My head would barely fit through the door some days. I've long since gotten over myself") and the workload to match. With the Blue Oval's portfolio full of premium brands like Aston Martin, Jaguar, Land Rover and Volvo at that point, along with the bread-and-butter Ford, Lincoln and Mercury models, Mays certainly had quite the challenge.
It was in the mid-2000s that Mays took over just the premium brands, and took on the new title of Chief Creative Officer. At the time, Mays endured some criticism for looking backwards to retro styling, rather than setting a new standard for American car design - criticism that Mays says he is free from with the all-new Fusion.

Race Recap: 2014 24 Hours of Le Mans defines 'endurance'

Commenting on the rush of events that rocked beginning and end of the 24 Hours of Le Mans, Paul Truswell of Radio Le Mans said "the race is about the ability to endure, not just the ability of drivers to do what they do for a long time." The entire race machine, all the way down to the pit boards and radios, has to survive the stress and abuse of the entire day. This was the race to prove those words.
There were two Toyotas, two Porsches and three Audis, five of the seven led the race at some point, six of the seven ran in the top three. Toyota will be hugely disappointed that it didn't win when its car and drivers were so, so strong, but they gave Audi the kind of scare we haven't seen since the best of Peugeot's days, and Toyota did a better job of it even in the loss. Porsche blew away everyone's expectations, falling 3.5 hours short of a fairy tale ending that would have made Disney cry.
But Le Mans doesn't really do fairy tales. Well, not that fairy tale. Audi's Twitter handle during the event was #welcomechallenges. As usual, Le Mans answered for the entire field.

Lotus and Aston Martin to hook up?

This has been a tumultuous year for Lotus - to say the least - from the company being sold off back in January to its CEO Dany Bahar being fired in June to its questionable financial status and rumors of the British automaker being sold off to another automaker. First, we heard that Volkswagen was interested in acquiring Lotus and parent company Proton, a rumor that was later dismissed. Now Automobile is reporting that fellow Brit Aston Martin could be in the market to work with or possibly even merge with Lotus.
While this is pure speculation at this point, such a venture could prove to be beneficial for both independent companies. That's because with Lotus focused on lightweight, relatively affordable sports cars and Aston Martin producing high-end performance cars, there is virtually no product overlap between the companies. The article suggests that a person or company wanting to merge these two automakers would have to raise between $1.1 billion and $1.6 billion in order to make a go of it, however.
We're not sure what to think of this latest rumor, but anything that can help get the struggling brand back to health at least has our interest.