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Ford adds 850 jobs to build 2015 F-150

Pickup trucks tend not to advance at quite the same pace as the rest of the industry. That's what makes the new Ford F-150 so remarkable, jettisoning its old steel construction in favor of aluminum. It's a game changer that Ford is betting big on, and in anticipation of surging demand, the Blue Oval automaker is adding 850 new jobs to put the thing together.
Those 850 new employees will be centered at Ford's Rouge complex in Michigan - with 300 at Dearborn Stamping, 50 more at Dearborn Diversified and 500 at the Dearborn Truck facility, the latter of which has already kicked off what Ford describes as "the largest manufacturing transformation in decades." Old manufacturing equipment is being replaced with the latest technologies, and even the Ford Rouge Factory Tour is undergoing a complete overhaul.
The new jobs come as part of the commitments Ford made to the UAW in 2011 to create 12,000 hourly jobs in the United States by 2015 - a number which Ford has already exceeded at 14,000. Over 4,000 of those are centered in southeastern Michigan.

Ford Fiesta rally car warms up in Sweden

Rallycross is seeing a sudden surge in popularity with two series bringing the racing to the US and Europe. The Ford OMSE team is competing in both championships this season, and it saw no reason not to hold practice with a highly modified Fiesta in the snow of Northern Sweden. It brought together Andreas Bakkerud from the European-focused FIA World Rallycross Championship and Patrik Sandell from the North American-focused Global Rallycross series for some training and fun. They certainly appear to be enjoying themselves, too, with some lovely pirouettes in the powder.
If you're unfamiliar with rallycross, the discipline combines the best of rallying and circuit racing. Drivers (with no co-drivers) race rally cars over a circuit that generally mixes dirt and asphalt, and unlike traditional rallying, multiple cars compete side-by-side at once. Even better, it's often a very two-fisted form of motorsports with lots of car-to-car contact. Global Rallycross and World Rallycross will both kick off their seasons in May. With spring on the way, scroll down to watch the Fiesta kick up some of the last snow drifts of the year.

2015 Ford F-150 specs revealed, EcoBoost 2.7L to make 325 hp and 375 lb-ft [w/video]

Our new man Greg Migliore is in attendance at a Ford media event at the Blue Oval's Dearborn, MI headquarters today, and he's reported in with a handful of the 2015 F-150 stats that we've been dying to know. Ford is slow-playing the news release here, but we can still offer up some interesting output and performance figures after half-year of waiting.
We have all be quite aware that Ford's shift to aluminum construction would save a lot of weight for F-150 models, and the results we're hearing now are duly impressive. For instance: in Super Crew trim, a 2015 F-150 is a whopping 732-pounds lighter than was its closest 2014-model-year equivalent. That's like hauling three middle-aged dudes to your bowling alley's league night for free. Polish your balls, guys.
Ford isn't willing to offer up any actual curb weights just yet, but if we take that 732-pound loss and extrapolate with the 5,128-pound curb weight of the 2014 F-150 Super Crew with the 3.7-liter V6, we can guesstimate that 2015 models will measure out in the 4,400-pound range. That's impressive.