Ford has done a great job of doing something very few do, looking farther ahead then just the next quarter. They managed to start doing this before hitting bottom, and so far the benefits have been really nice to see. Most of it seems to be from bringing in a lot of the European Ford managers to the headquarters location and allowing them to influence the worldwide operations.

Sync in a Ford is a very nice system. And it's got some future proofing built in. Beyond being firmware up dateable by the end user, it also has hooks in it that can be used by smartphones. Ford realizes people change phones more often then cars, so it makes more sense to expose hooks for current and future phones to tie to, vs just supporting the models out today.

It's a major factor for my next car. My Mustang was too old to be able to retrofit Sync into it, and my CarPC route was a disaster. I just want solid integration, and it's going to have to come from the manufacturer now with the shrinking aftermarket. Even if the built in voice control is bad, I now also have Siri to fall back to, as long as the car has a good microphone setup.

Outside tech features, Ford has also been doing well on the engine efficiency standpoint. They have their assembly line set up to be able to fit any variety of engine (gas, diesel, hybrid, electric) without major changes. They've also been bumping up specs without impacting pricing much. That 22k "cheapest" Mustang is at the same power level as my 08 GT, and it gets better gas mileage. Not bad for a sports car.