Let's get the obvious out of the way: 200 mph is an absurd number. Jet airliners take off and land at slower speeds. 200 mph is twice as fast as most Americans will ever drive, and it requires twenty-five times the power needed to go 60 mph. The staff of this magazine has driven some of the fastest, most exotic cars in the world, and yet only two of us -- European bureau chief Georg Kacher and contributor Ezra Dyer-- have driven 200 mph.

This summer, the women of the auto industry will strut their stuff and show off their skills to raise money for the SEMA Memorial Scholarship Fund with the first-ever SEMA Mustang Build Powered by Women.

Ford took a lot of flack for the 2010 Taurus SHO. A big car with a big engine, the SHO had straight-line speed in spades, but when it came to braking, Ford's full-size car couldn't handle the pressure. Plagued by awkward pedal modulation and serious brake fade, the Super High Output Taurus drove more like a nostalgic marketing exercise than a red-blooded engineering effort. Ford engineers rectified several shortcomings on all Taurus models with a 2013 update, but they're especially eager to win back respect for the SHO. To that end, they're making even loftier claims about the new, optional Performance Package: they say that this 4300-pound family car is track-ready.

In the january ipad issue, I wrote the following about the Frankfurt concept car used as a teaser for the critically important production Ford Fusion/Mondeo: "I harbor a hope that the production Ford to be shown in Detroit two months after this is written will be even better than the Evos--and a worry that it won't be as good. Whichever it is, we'll be stuck with it for a while, because once the presses start stamping, it'll be a long time until anything can change." The definitive Fusion is now here, and it does not enjoy better styling than the Evos, but it's as good, in a less spectacular way. I'm very happy to see an excellent mainstream Ford sedan, probably the best since the brilliant original Taurus a quarter century ago.

Ford has done a great job with the exhaust note on the 6.2-liter engine. There's an authoritative rumble when you fire it up and it walks the line between annoying drone while cruising and emitting a deep growl while accelerating. The soundtrack fits the Harley-Davidson theme of this truck particularly well.

Goldilocks wants a new compact crossover. As circumstances would have it, she's in luck. She's interested in a segment chock full of nice vehicles from just about every carmaker you can think of -- from Kia to Range Rover and every manufacturer in between.

The road from Stinson Beach to the top of Mt. Tamalpais is a classic California hill-climb, a narrow, twisting, dipping, heaving, unpredictable ribbon of off-camber asphalt that tests the mettle of car, driver, and, especially, passenger. Ford Escape chief engineer Eric Loeffler, riding shotgun in an all-wheel-drive 2013 Escape SE, seems unfazed. I'm taking the SUV to the edges of its performance envelope, revving the 1.6-liter turbo four to its 6375-rpm redline, diving into corners, braking without equivocation, and creating my own private racing lines where the road opens up into broad sweepers. In other words, driving exactly unlike 99 percent of Escape owners will ever drive. Loeffler, though, needs to be back at his Fisherman's Wharf hotel by 5 o'clock so that he can get to the San Francisco airport. He's heading to China, where he's working on the Escape's identical twin, the Ford Kuga, which will be sold there for the first time. I am an obliging chauffeur, a willing participant in Ford's global product-expansion plans.

Ford chose an auspicious moment to dazzle the world with the engineering talent and savvy product planning behind the 2012 Focus Electric. Bad news about electric cars had been cascading in the days before the car's press launch in Southern California. Production of the Chevrolet Volt remained suspended, the recall of one leading battery maker's products threatened that company's very existence, and an exploding lithium-ion battery injured two workers at the GM Tech Center.

If you thought the 2013 Shelby GT500 had too much power, wait until you hear what Shelby American has cooked up for the 50th anniversary of the original Cobra: the 950-horsepower Shelby 1000, and the track-only 1100-horsepower Shelby 1000 S/C.

The current generation of the Ford Mustang received a facelift in 2010 and two new engines in 2011, but that still hasn't been enough to stop many pony-car buyers from visiting Chevrolet dealerships instead of Ford showrooms. Last year, the Chevrolet Camaro outsold the Mustang by 17,811 units, and in the first two months of 2011 the Chevy is outpacing the Ford to the tune of 1545 cars. It should come as no surprise, then, that Ford has launched a series of updates for the 2013 Mustang.

The refreshed 2013 Ford Flex was first shown to the public at the Los Angeles auto show last fall, but the sunny climes of California couldn't have seemed farther away as we drove the Flex through snow, ice, rain, and sleet in western Oregon. It's a good thing our test cars were equipped with all-wheel drive and a full set of safety technologies.

It has only been two years since Ford introduced the current generation of the Taurus sedan, yet the car is already receiving a thorough makeover. That's early for a refresh in the auto industry, but Taurus sales were down last year (when overall car sales were up), so it may have been prudent for Ford to accelerate the normal timetable. Thus, the 2013 Taurus is arriving early, bringing with it a wide range of upgrades.

It's a brave new world, kids, and in that new world, the number of cylinders an engine has is almost irrelevant to its horsepower output. For that, you can thank the proliferation of turbochargers. These days, the two biggest variables in power output are engine displacement and boost pressure, period.

In December, it became official: Ford would replace the E-Series with a version of its new-generation global Transit van under Ford's "One Ford" program. Details were scarce at the time, but Ford is finally starting to dish about the new Transit, and just announced that the van will receive Ford's 3.5-liter twin-turbo EcoBoost V-6 found under the hood of numerous Blue Oval offerings.

The Ford Fiesta ST concept was first shown at last year's Frankfurt Motor Show (and again in four-door form at the L.A. show), teasing us with the promise of a go-fast hatchback that would slot below the coming Focus ST. Now, after several months of waiting, Ford has confirmed the obvious--the 2013 Ford Fiesta ST will indeed be produced. The new top-spec Fiesta is making its debut in production-spec form at the 2012 Geneva Motor Show in advance of its appearance in Ford's European showrooms next year.

The Ford Explorer has been maligned by the press because it rides on an aging platform and can be equipped with the flaky MyFord Touch system. Despite the criticism, Ford managed to sell 135,704 examples of the Explorer last year. I don't understand why this vehicle sells so well while the vastly superior Dodge Durango sold only 51,697 units in 2011.

Ford has pulled the wraps off of its newest versatile people mover ahead of its Geneva Motor Show debut, but it's not a minivan: it's called the B-Max, a compact hatchback people mover.

For speed enthusiasts who love the feel of the wind in their hair, Ford is unveiling the 2013 Shelby GT500 convertible at the Chicago auto show. Like the 2013 GT500 coupe that was shown at the Los Angeles show in November 2011, the muscle car benefits from a new engine good for a lofty 650 hp. Making the car's launch even more special is the fact that it coincides with the 20th anniversary of Ford's Special Vehicles Team.

Ford recently built its 100,000th Ecoboost-equipped F-series pickup, ten months after the engine was first introduced in February. By any measure, the turbocharged V-6 has been well received by F-series buyers, who it was feared might look askance at an engine that wasn't a V-8.

Despite the missing two cylinders, the new EcoBoost engine still pulls like a strong and smooth V-6. There is little lag, and I doubt that most buyers would notice any difference in power delivery. However, they will probably notice the very un-V-6-like noises coming from the engine bay - it may pull like a V-6, but sounds like the four-cylinder it is. What owners of previous Edge models will definitely notice is the electric power-assisted steering. The wheel feels as though it's attached to nothing, and makes the steering seem sloppy. It also gives zero feedback as to what the wheels are doing -- it's like something that belongs in a video game.

For proof that Ford takes the midsize segment seriously, one need look no farther than the company's quality standards for the new 2013 Fusion sedan. Engineers benchmarked the Audi A6 for panel gaps and fitment, and Mercedes-Benz cars for interior materials quality. That attention to detail, along with a striking new design and fuel-efficient drivetrains, are designed to draw buyers out of other midsize sedans and into the Fusion. The new car bows at the Detroit auto show and goes on sale in the middle of 2012.

Presenting the Evos at Frankfurt last September, Ford chief creative officer J Mays promised that the styling direction embodied in the attractive concept -- created by Ford of Europe -- would be seen in a production car in four months, just about time for the Detroit show. So perhaps there will be a really stunning mainstream Ford sedan for the first time in too many years. Not that any of the present One Ford models, from the tiny Fiat 500-based Ka in Europe, to Mazda-inspired Fiestas and Focuses, to Volvo-influenced Mondeos, to the almost-all-American Taurus, are bad. They're not. It's just that their styling is at best so-so.

Our vehicles may be getting collectively faster, but it would seem that the family man (or woman) who still has a taste for velocity has precious few choices. In a world where German car companies stuff 500-horsepower engines under the hoods of station wagons, it's a bit perplexing that there aren't any properly fast minivans.

With nearly two million units sold since its launch in 2001, the Ford Escape has undoubtedly been a smashing success for Ford. Seeing as the current model is Ford's second-best selling product (following the F-Series truck range, of course), it's critical that the 2013 Ford Escape, which makes its public debut at the Los Angeles auto show, is even more appealing to consumers than the outgoing product.

With 650 horsepower and 600 pound-feet of torque to work with, the 2013 Ford Shelby GT500 is said to be capable of topping out north of 200 mph. You don't squeeze that kind of power from a supercharged 5.8-liter V-8 unless you want to send a message, which is exactly what the Blue Oval is doing...and the recipients are quite obviously Chevrolet and the Camaro ZL1.