Ford

2011 Ford Edge: The popular crossover gets airborne

Sporting a glass cockpit with programmable touch screens, the Ford Edge offers space-age theatricality to the driving experience. But it may face some stiff internal competition when the Explorer is relaunched.

As CEO of Ford since 2006, aeronautical engineer Alan Mulally has adapted some airplane design ideas for automobiles. One of his first was standardizing the placement of controls on all Ford vehicles. You can find the windshield wiper switch in the MORE

Today in the Fortune 500: Mobile shopping ready to roll, more on big banks in crisis mode and Monsanto's sweet beet problem.

The Fortune 500 comes out just once a year, but the companies on it make headlines every day. Here then are today's highlights of news and happenings coming from the biggest names in business.

By Shelley DuBois, reporter

GET YOUR SUPER-SPECIALIZED APPS HERE Fortune 500 companies are readying mobile phone shopping apps in time for this year's holiday season. Hope Depot (HD), Best Buy Inc. (BBY), and Amazon (AMZN) have MORE

2011 Ford Explorer: Makeover for an aging star

Amid declining sales and a shifting auto market, it looked like Ford had lost faith in the Explorer, one of the company's most successful models. But Ford has given the Explorer a revise and a new lease on life, perhaps at the expense of another member of its family.

Ford doesn't do everything right. Back in the day when SUVs were the hot thing going, the Explorer was the hottest of MORE

2011 Lincoln MKS AWD: Ford needs to raise its luxury game

CEO Alan Mulally's One Ford strategy has been a big hit so far, and Ford's recovery from the 2008-2009 recession has outpaced its competitors. But Mulally has missed out on a sizeable chunk of global business this year, and that is the boom in luxury car sales.

Led by China, affluent buyers in many parts of the world are pouring back into the market, with Mercedes-Benz, BMW, and Audi the big MORE

2011 Ford Fiesta: I wish I could like it better

The Ford Fiesta may be the best little car you never heard of.

More than 12 million Fiestas have been sold in Europe since it was introduced in 1976.

But except for a three-year run from 1978 to 1980, Fiesta has been absent from the U.S. American buyers are not known for their hospitable attitudes toward domestic small cars.

Honda Fit and Nissan Versa -- yes. Chevrolet Aveo or Dodge Neon -- no.

Now MORE

Lusty Lincoln: 2010 MKT

Are better times coming? Ford seems to think so, based on the design and features of the new Lincoln MKT.

When you want to take the psychic temperature of the Ford Motor Co., all you have to do is look at the latest offerings from Lincoln.

When times are tough, the company makes little effort to distinguish luxury-pretender Lincoln from its homelier Ford origins. A new grille here, redesigned tail lamps there, MORE

BMW 128i or Ford Flex: What does $40,000 buy?

Sometimes the obvious needs to be re-examined. That became clear to me the other day when I looked at the sticker prices of two vehicles I was driving. The two were radically different in size, function, performance, and status. Yet their as-tested prices came within $1,000 of each other.

For the enthusiast, the price similarity is irrelevant. He buys cars that turn him on, and the monetary value they represent is secondary. Not MORE