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Hey all; I've been lurking for a good bit now, admiring all the secksy goodness we here in the U.S. can only hope for, and the "big show" just went down over the weekend in Carlisle, PA: the 2014 Ford Nationals!
This was a big year for the Mustang as it is the 50th Anniversary, so the majority of the event was muscle-centric, but let's not kid; it usually is over here! Steve Saleen, the lead designers of the SVT Cobra team were some of the special guest speakers for the Mustang's celebration. For the smaller cars, Ken Anderson from Mountune was a special guest speaker for the Focus/Fiesta Rising club. The Focus ST has finally begun to wake up Americans to the capability,power, & performance of a well-built four cylinder. ST Focus' & Fiestas are starting to actually occupy a few more booths in the vendor areas (finally!)!
As a '03 Focus ZX3 owner, the big draw for me and my ilk is the growing club known as Focus Rising / Fiesta Rising. This has become the largest single gathering of Ford four-cylinders in the nation. Our club took the #1 Participation Award for the second year in a row, but we have been in the top three in the last 5 years as well. I shot a good bit of footage with my GoPro and pieced a video together for my forum friends, took a few pictures... as I haven't really been a contributor here yet: I figure I'd drop a thread and show off what happens over here!
This is only half of the Focus Rising club cars, too...
Hope you all enjoy the pics, and thanks for letting me contribute in the global Ford community! See you all around the threads!
People were just psyched to finally see them in-person; they ran them up & down the rows before the show and occasionally started them and let people rev them a bit... it's the first time they have been shown publicly on American soil, so there was a consistent buzz around that tent.
I put the links up because of the sheer number of cool things there that even I didn't get the time to check out...
This restored GT500 was for sale @ $175,000!
This green GT500 is THE barn find! It's only unoriginal part... one of the tires! It is one of the oldest, most original and unmolested examples of these cars, and appraisers have apparently been using it as a benchmark for these cars ever since it was found.
I'm still perusing the pics all my friends took while we were walking the fair... SOOO MANY LINKS, SO LITTLE TIME!
Just got through another Ford Nationals! I'll get some more pics uploaded as I get 'em... I still haven't found all my camera gear to get all the pics saved yet!
We finally got our sneak-peek at the 2016 Focus RS!!! The Mustang fanboys are gonna be so butthurt!
your making us all jealous as we know the car scene in the US is massive but our weather and costs of fuel etc over here have always put a downer on enthusiasm $10 a gallon btw
your making us all jealous as we know the car scene in the US is massive but our weather and costs of fuel etc over here have always put a downer on enthusiasm $10 a gallon btw
It's getting ridiculous over here, too. We're not long to catch up on this! The V8 guys must have better jobs for all the gas money they need... The scene is bouncing back well from the drop in the economy and the subsequent die-off of the automotive aftermarket over here, and the Carlisle Nationals are one of the largest make-specific car shows in the country. I see pics of the shows you all get; it's a marvel to me all the really cool things we just never saw here!
Being a Focus fanatic, I'm making due with the 2.0l I got, so I have fallen in love with what that continent has done with small engines. There's proper respect because folks know four (or five) cylinders can get a helluva lot done if you build 'em right. I always get to have the "V8's are better" conversation. Then I show them footage of a EsCos ripping around an entire corner at-speed and they shut right up!
The best part about the fuel here:how the decline in quality and rise of prices began. Once the politicians got involved, the industry had to put 10% ethanol in the fuel as an emissions reduction measure. That's what they said on our news channels; but if you watch CSPAN, live near Washington D.C., or read like a madman you also heard about the farming industry hitting dire straights 6-7yrs ago. The farmers were having to pimp-out their acreage to the government and told to plant corn under the program they were on. The corn helped the farmers, who helped the oil/fuel industry "clean" up their fuels a tad, who helped the manufacturers start getting towards their mandated CAFE standard in time, so we the consumers could feel better about not killing the earth.
Only real hiccup was the cars; they weren't engineered to run that concentration so until a model year (or two for some mfgs) later the new cars weren't either... all those vehicles running around on a fuel with less caloric energy to burn. The prices went up, the cars burn the stuff faster; and they industry made billions upon billions.
And for all the push for cleaner fuels and vehicles; you sure don't see enough E85 stations (or a good consistent %, that's made some of the racers carry sight-glass hygrometers around to test the stuff before they pump it). There was/is research into bacterial bio-diesel, so hopefully the nerds of the world can synthesize something gasoline cars can run on. I don't EVER want to stop driving mine!
I reeeeeeeeeally gotta get back to posting more. With "my" autoX back up and running again, I should have plenty to share!
Here's my real favorite... The Airport Autocross!!!!! This regional airport used to host full-fledged racing here; Carroll Shelby, Roger Penske, and so many other great and historically important people raced on this property 50+ years ago.
Wonder how that Sapphire and Escort Cosworth got in to the US? Assume they were bought over in bits then made up in the US?
The folks that own those cars are more than generous repeating their story at the Nationals! The EsCos was purchased whole and converted to ever-changing specs (they had a few rounds of do overs before it "passed" over here). *For instance: the blink-before-brake-signal feature had to be disabled **that feature only began surfacing as a safety enhancement here on motorcycles and large emergency vehicles a few years after 2000*
Originally Posted by Sniffle
WOW them Daytona coupe's ( I'm guessing they replica's ) For me the only car that's on par with the beauty of an E-type jag.
I've seen newer Jags there recently. At the first three years' events there were some very impressive cars out there autocrossing with us! Those are most definitely replicas; Factory Five to be exact. That is also who makes the GTM Kit Car (that red windowless MR racecar looking thing) for the Chevy guys.
This guy was at a gas station near the auto mall of dealerships I work at. This car is gorgeous; he was at the Jaguar/Range Rover dealer. This car only has 35,000mi on it!!
The Factory Five GTM kit car
The #22 Cobra (Wade Chamberlain)... that guy can effn drive, man! We keep commenting that it'd be sweet to just watch him race all day as aggressively precise as he is! I'll have some video up once I get through editing.
American Focus Meet & Ford Nationals (Pic Heavy!)
WOW them Daytona coupe's ( I'm guessing they replica's )
