svtenthusiast

My father is the GM at a Ford dealer also, you are in good company! No, I have not driven a 4 cyl manual, they are few and far between. I have only seen one in person and I believe it was a "S" model, and it wasn't in his inventory. I have thought about that combo, but I don't think I would be totally happy since I have always driven V-6's and V-8's.

That's crazy, I thought they were supposed to be "zoom, zoom". Hopefully Ford didn't have a part in the elimination of the stick. Maybe they got tired of people complaining that Mazda had it but not the Ford.

There hasn't been any talk about a manual trans availablilty on the 2010 Fusion, so I am assuming there won't be one. It's frustrating to the enthiusiast to see you can get a manual v-6 in the Mazda 6 (same powertrain) but not the Ford. How hard would it be for them to offer this? Is there really that many differences between the 2 cars that it would cost them that much in engineering? I know that manual trans buyers are a dying breed but there is nothing else in the Ford line that offers a manual that is a sensible daily driver. I think back to the good times of the Taurus SHO, Contour, Thunderbird SC, new edge Cougar, that were not Mustangs, but offered performance with a manual transmission for the enthusiasts. Today we have the Focus, 4-cyl Fusion with a manual, big deal. I guess I am going to settle with the (hopefully) 3.5 V-6 "sport" model Fusion with the automatic transmission for my daily driver and keep my 1997 Mustang Cobra (only available with manual transmission) to get my joy of driving a stick shift! I currently have a 99 Cougar V-6 with a stick shift (rare to find) for a daily driver, what a fun car for what it is!

Are they getting rid of the rear drum brakes and going back to discs? The article mentions "Braking improvements focused on increasing initial braking response and further fine-tuning the vehicle’s anti-lock braking system" but doesn't note any hardware changes.