After a robust seven-year production life, the third generation Ford Focus is taking its bow to make way for the redesigned 2019 fourth generation Focus. While the hatchback has already been exposed, this is the first time we've laid eyes on the sedan version. As expected, several design elements from the five-door hatch have made their way over to the sedan like the headlights, taillights and wider platform. Read on for details and pictures.
We've had plenty of customers hit and run over a wide variety of fauna in our time, but an employee at MBRP told our owner something a little more unique, but wholly Canadian while at a recent vendor conference. Our dear friend at MBRP is one of the few people to actually get hit by a moose while driving his F150. The moose bolted out of the woods and t-boned his truck, causing enough damage that the FX4 was totaled out thanks to $24,000 in body damage. A very nice 2009-2014 F150 Undercover LUX SE Painted Tonneau Cover and a set of 2009-2014 F150 Anzo LED Taillights were also victims of the moose. Unfortunately, the moose didn't survive the ordeal. Here's some images of the aftermath that he sent over, showing proof of one of the most Canadian things ever.
If you haven't been to Flagstaff, Arizona, you are sorely missing out. Great weather, skiing, snowboarding, excellent night life when the local college is in, and more off-road trails than we rightly know what to do with. While last year's trip was a more about fun and games, this year's little adventure had some business thrown in. Namely, yours truly fumbling around in the cold and snow with a Lux meter taking measurements from Rigid Industries Off-Road LED Light Bars and their cheapo eBay counterparts while Dylan took notes. The good news is we got some excellent quantitative data out of us freezing our asses off, so it all worked out. Other than that, we had a jolly good time horsing around with our 2012 F150 EcoBoost FX4 Project Truck, 2007 F150 XLT 4WD Project Truck, and our 2005 F150 4WD XLT Project Truck out in the woods, mountains, and snow.
There's nothing better than great weather and the great outdoors, especially when you have some seriously built project trucks to screw around with. There's also nothing worse than not being invited on your coworkers' grand adventure, and then hearing how great it was. I'm not bitter. Not even little... Anyway, a few of the guys here at Stage 3 loaded up our 2012 F150 EcoBoost FX4 Project Truck and our 2007 F150 4WD 5.4L XLT Project Truck and headed up north to Prescott National Forest outside of Prescott, Arizona, for a little off-roading, photo shooting, and some testing out of some the new gear on both the trucks and on the Stage 3 Website. Luckily, they came back with good images and some insight into some of our newest performance parts and hardware.
A trip out to the Los Angeles just wouldn't be complete without stopping by ICON Vehicle Dynamics out in Riverside. ICON had invited us out for a tour many moons ago, and we finally squeezed in some time to swing by and get a first-hand look at their assembly and testing facilities. While we've been a little disappointed with some of the backorders and delays for some of the ICON products that we know and love for our beloved F150s, SVT Raptors, and Super Dutys, it's not for lack of trying. ICON's popularity and, by extension, the demand for their awesome and high-quality suspension parts has absolutely exploded over the last year. While there's been a few struggles, ICON is winning the war, and they're churning out suspension hardware at a masterful pace.
We've been waiting for our opportunity to pounce on a new 2015 F150 ever since they were announced, and now that time has come. We here at Stage 3 Motorsports have just placed our order for a 2015 F150 with a 3.5L EcoBoost V6. The truck's coming with a 145" wheelbase with a SuperCrew cab and a 5.5ft bed. The paint color will be Race Red, and we're planning on going with a black on red color scheme once again since it looked oh, so good on our 2012 F150 5.0L. Thanks to Ford's revised submodel/package scheme, what we ended up ordering was a Lariat with a 501A Equipment Package that was also paired up with Ford's FX4 Appearance Package and Trailer Tow Package. Basically, we stacked packages on top of packages in order to get what we needed. The truck will look more or less like the image below...right before we bastardize it into something even more awesome. Unfortunately, we've got a good bit of waiting to do. The 2015 F150s aren't expected to land en masse until late December or January, meaning we probably won't see our 2015 F150 until mid- or late January.
Real, pure, ugly, bog-smelling, nasty mud is not a common occurrence in most of Arizona, and certainly not around the Phoenix area (until Monsoon season). The sprawling swamplands of Louisiana are an entirely different story, as F150ecoboost.net forum member (and good customer of ours) Pinero61 found out when he buried his 2013 F150 EcoBoost FX4 deep into a trail. Despite being packed with one of our EcoBoost Phase 4 Performance Packages, a 170° thermostat, and custom tuning from MPT to bring it all together, his 2.5" leveling kit and 35" General Grabber tires wrapped around 20" Method 301s just wasn't enough to beat the enormous patch of rutted mud that he found himself buried in to nearly his truck's frame rails. Still, the whole adventure makes for some great pictures, which Pinero61 has let us post on our blog. Hit the jump for all of the muddy goodness!
While MyFord Touch usually gives all of the warm happy feelings of your average root canal, it is a good idea in principle, if not in application. One of the better things about the MyFord Touch display is its ability to display custom wallpapers and really class up the look of your truck or show your pride for your sports franchise, post-secondary educational institution, or aftermarket performance parts retailer of choice. GriffFX4, a user over at F150forum.com, has been going hog-wild making all sorts of awesome MyFord wallpapers for just about anything he gets a request for. To that end, Griff went out of his to make a bunch of wallpapers featuring the Stage 3 Motorsports shield logo. Needless to say, they're absolutely bad ass. Thank you, Griff for hooking us up. If you like his work, he's currently running a request thread over at F150forums. Make sure to shoot him a PayPal donation using his [email protected] email address. Hit the jump for the full gallery of Stage 3 MyFord Touch Backgrounds.
Steve Saleen is back in the news, and he has something nice to show us. StangTV just did an excellent writeup of the reveal of the Saleen S351 Mustang. This 700hp monstrosity has all of the aggressive and sleek styling that you'd expect from Saleen, and the power to back all that sexiness up
