by Dan Roth

What to do with that spare Mopar big block you’ve got left over from your monster truck project? Why, let’s build a motorcycle! We’re not using our arms that much, anyway, so we might as well just tear ‘em right out of the sockets; it’s not like we perform manual labor, we’re keyboard jockeys. Voice-recognition software will ensure our job security once the old extremities are history, anyway.

Bike owner and builder Nick Argyle got out of the monster-truck business but still wanted a nice toy. He’d downsized his shop, so the available space dictated a motorcycle. Nick’s wife was down with it as long as he used the engine he had sitting around — an 8.2-liter supercharged Mopar V8. Whooee! That’s a lotta iron to climb over just to get to the drag strip. It’s road legal, and some ingenuity led to the engine being used as a stressed member of the frame. Note also the routing of the supercharger drive belt through the front forks.

Basically, the bike looks like a couple of wheels bolted onto an engine. Sure, that describes essentially every motorcycle on the road. In this instance, however, it’s supremely cool (and strange) to see an engine sitting there looking just as it would under the hood of a car, but with a set of handlebars and a drive chain connected to it. There’s no performance data, but some rough math assuming a 1500lb total weight (blown Mopar big blocks aren’t light — the engine alone probably weighs 1000 pounds) and using the provided horsepower figure of 1200 gives an estimated quarter-mile ET of 6.27 seconds with a trap speed of 217 MPH.

Damn.

We’d be curious to see actual ETs, as we just scratched a few things out on paper without knowing gearing or the actual weight using the handy formulas in our Auto Math Handbook. Even if it didn’t go fast, it looks mean, and we bet it sounds even meaner with those wide open headers. WHAT!?

More photos after the jump

[Source: Carscoop]

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by Sam Abuelsamid

Ford just announced its full year financial results for 2006, and the picture is really ugly. From October through the end of the year alone, it consumed $5.8 billion. For the full year it expended $12.7 billion more than it took in. Last year was one of the worst years in Ford’s history, with two major stabs at a restructuring plan, CEO Bill Ford stepping down, borrowing more than $25 billion to fund operations and announcements about closing 16 factories and eliminating more than 44,000 jobs.

Although the numbers look terrible for Ford, $9.9 billion of it was for one-time charges associated with buyouts, plant closures and other restructuring costs. Losses from operations were a “mere” $2.8 billion. Another nasty figure is the revenue, down to $160.1 billion from $176.9 billion the year before. The team in Dearborn is feeling some major pain from the crash in sales of their cash cow SUVs like the Explorer and Expedition. The full Ford press release is after the jump.

[Source: Ford]

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by John Neff

We all know that Ford doesn’t break down the earnings (or losses) of its Premier Automotive Group, which includes Jaguar, Volvo, Land Rover and Aston Martin. Nevertheless, the Detroit News has learned just how much of an anchor the Jaguar brand was on the group’s bottom line last year. In 2006 the Jaguar brand lost $715 million. DTN also uncovered an internal memo to executives that projects the brand will lose $550 million in 2007 and another $300 million in 2008. Clearly a quick turnaround is not in the cards for Jaguar, an asset into which Ford has dumped billions and billions of dollars since its purchase back in 1989.

[Source: The Detroit News]

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The Lincoln MKR concept, introduced recently at the North American International Auto Show in Detroit, has new engine technology that delivers V-8 power and performance with V-6 fuel economy. The new engine technology that makes this possible is called TwinForce. It will appear on future Lincoln and Ford vehicles and will employ state-of-the-art direct injection (DI) technology.
(c)2007 Ford Motor Co.

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For 2007, Jaguar takes luxury to the next level with the addition of several new standard features and a new luxury package. (c)2007 Ford Motor Co.

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Ford's product-led recovery took another leap forward as the 2008 Ford Escape and the 2008 Mercury Mariner celebrated the launch of production at the Kansas City Assembly Plant. (c)2007 Ford Motor Co.

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