A variety of Ford and Lincoln models are being recalled in the States to fix a potential issue with the automatic transmission.

In particular, the Blue Oval told the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) that it is recalling 10,500 vehicles, including the 2012-2013 Ford Mustang sports car, 2011-2012 Ford F-150 pickup truck, 2012 Ford Expedition SUV and 2012 Lincoln Navigator SUV.

Do you remember China's JAC 4R3 pickup truck clone of the Ford F-150 that made headlines earlier this year? For those who can't recall what happened last week, let alone in February, here's a bit of a refresher.

In January, JAC Motors presented a doppelganger of the Ford F-150 called the 4R3 to its domestic dealers, with plans to begin series production towards the end of the year. Naturally, photos were taken at the event and it didn't take long for the news to reach the other side of the Pacific.

At the time, JAC was planning to debut the 4R3 at last week's Auto China 2012 in Beijing, but as you may recall, that didn't happen. Why, you ask? Well, evidently, Ford did what it had to do to protect itself from JAC's unapologetic move to clone the F-150.

Speaking to Autoline's host John McElroy, Bill Coughlin, President and CEO of Ford Global Technologies and Intellectual Property Chief, said that the Blue Oval took all the necessary steps to prevent this from happening.

There's a new F-Series Super Duper Duty coming out next Friday, March 9, and to get us into the mood, Ford issued this teaser image of its pickup truck covered in a black sheet.

But that's about all Ford is willing to share with us so we don't know if there are actually of lot changes hiding behind the sheet or if the Blue Oval has simply touched up the truck here and there to keep it competitive.

A larger version of the opening picture can be found right after the break.

You'll most likely remember Chevrolet's recent Super Bowl XLVI ad on the Silverado where it made fun of "Dave" who didn't make it to the rendezvous point with his friends after a post-apocalyptic catastrophe because he was driving a Ford F-150.

General Motors' move to take a swipe at the F-150 has found a follower as the Chrysler Group's Ram Trucks division has launched its own commercial poking some fun at the Ford pickup truck.

The ad starts by showing the Ram truck with a deep voice (doesn't it remind you of the garbled voices shouting "they took our jobs" in South Park?) in the background asking this question:

"What would happen if you were to take away 30-horsepower from a Ram 1500, remove 27 foot pounds of torque and subtract 40,000 miles from its powertrain limited warranty?" The same voice answers: "Well, you'd end up with a Ford F-150."

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) has announced several recalls in the first week of February.

Starting with Toyota, the Japanese carmaker has issued a recall on a total of 427 RAV4 vehicles manufactured from November 24, 2011, through December 19, 2011, because the curtain shield airbags may not deploy. Toyota said it would check the RAV4s and if necessary, replace the assemblies. The safety recall is expected to begin in early March.

We've seen this play before and before that and before that, but it never gets old: Chinese automakers replicating vehicles from western automakers. One brand that keeps popping up on our cloning radar is Jianghuai Automobile, more commonly known as JAC Motors.

It's latest accomplishment is the JAC 4R3 pickup truck that makes no attempt to hide the fact that it's a styling copy of the Ford F-150. Of course, as with other Chinese doppelgangers, the similarities begin and end with the appearance as it's too costly for automakers to extend the cloning to the mechanical hardware.

The 4R3 will reportedly make its debut at the Beijing Motor Show in April and will then go on sale in China where it will be offered with a 2.8-liter four-cylinder diesel engine pushing out 108-horsepower and 240Nm (177 lb-ft) of peak torque.

For decades, America's best-selling pickup trucks turned a collective blind eye to what were foreseeable technological advances in most areas of their construction as Detroit's Big Three preferred simple solutions that significantly hiked up their profit margins.

However, these past few years, automakers like GM, Ford and Chrysler are slowly trying to modernize their trucks mostly in the name of fuel efficiency and CO2 emissions, especially now that the U.S. Corporate Average Fuel-Economy standards are getting stricter.

We've already seen some advances on the engine front including the availability of Ford's EcoBoost V6 on the F-150 and GM’s hybrid lineup, but there's more to come in different areas than you'd normally expect.

They say seeing is believing but you'll probably want to watch the video of Brenda Hewett shooting a puck in a barely visible, tiny hole on a board from the far blue line during the Akwesasne Warriors Federal Hockey League game this past Saturday more than a couple of times to become a believer.

What makes the feat, which won her a brand new 2011 F-150 truck from Frenchie's Ford in New York, even more spectacular is that the 59-year-old woman is said to have never held a hockey stick in her life. Truly unbelievable. Watch the clip after the break.

With government agencies enforcing stricter emission regulations every year and auto manufacturers doing their best to prove that their cars are as eco-friendly as possible, hyperbole is part of the game.

A common saying is that the modern cars are cleaner than lawn equipment and that the carbon dioxide emissions they release are actually lower than that present in the air that comes into the combustion chamber.

Edmund's Insideline decided to put the theories to the test. Since cars come in all shapes and sizes, they chose two examples from the opposite side of the spectrum: a Fiat 500 mini and a Ford F-150 SVT Raptor Crew Cab pickup.

The diminutive Fiat is powered by a 1.4-liter four with 100HP, while the big and menacing-looking Raptor sports a 411HP 6.2-liter V8.

Ford's F-150 Raptor SVT is one of those trucks that doesn't make much sense but somehow people like it and are willing to buy it despite its lofty $42,000+ price tag (in the States).

Being big, brawny and surprisingly powerful thanks to the ferocious 6.2-liter V8 with 411-ponies that's lurking under the hood, definitely helps.

Now there's a question of what to do once you get yourself in a F-150 Raptor SVT and while we can think of many things, for this particular owner, the answer was to climb over a Toyota (Corolla we believe). Whatever pops your cork...Watch the clip after the jump.

All carmakers want their vehicles to sell in big numbers. And they make a big fuss out of it when they succeed, especially when they top the sales charts in their respective segments. However, high sale numbers don’t necessarily translate to high profits, especially with the discounts that have become a common practice to draw customers to dealerships.

A recent study conducted by Max Warburton of Bernstein Research, a market trends and analysis firm, reveals which models sold in the U.S. are the most profitable for automakers.

Despite being blamed for almost anything, from the greenhouse effect to the costly bailout a couple of years ago, the study shows that Detroit’s Big Three light-truck models lead the list of the most profitable vehicles in the U.S.

The most popular truck in Ford's range, the F-150, is entering the 2012 model year with a few mild upgrades concentrated on fine-tuning the driveline and improving the equipment packages.

Under the sheetmetal, Ford replaced last year’s electronic shift-on-the-fly with a an enhanced two-speed automatic 4x4 system that gains a 4x4 auto mode for Lariat, King Ranch and Platinum trim levels. Across the range, there's a new standard Hill Start Assist feature that prevents the truck from rolling backward at a stop.

One of the stars of this year's edition of the Top Gear Live show that takes place at the NEC Birmingham from November 11 to 13, and at the ExCel London from November 24 to 27, will be the Red Dragon monster truck.

Hand-built by former European Monster Truck Champion, Rob Williams, this beast made its stage debut at the Top Gear Live event in South Africa last year.

The Red Dragon is based on the Ford F-350 Super Duty but power come courtesy of a bespoke 9.5-liter supercharged V8 engine from Chevrolet that delivers 1,308bhp and 1,040 lb-ft while burning through a gallon of methanol fuel every 50-60 yards (!).

For years, Caddy’s big SUV, the Escalade is the number one target of thieves in the States and this hasn't changed in the latest study from the Highway Loss Data Institute (HLDI).

According to the latest data for 2008-10 models from HLDI, the Escalade is more than six times as likely to be stolen by thieves compared to the average vehicle.

Since teaming up in 1999, the brand alliance between Ford and Harley-Davidson has produced 10 F-150 models, six Super Duty F-250 and F-350 models, as well as the first Harley-Davidson F-450 edition truck in 2009, resulting in more than 70,000 sales.

The latest Ford model to wear the Harley Davidson badge is the 2012 F-150, which like its predecessors, gains distinctive design tweaks and added standard features.

It seems like US carmakers are beginning to worry about the rising inventory of their big pickup trucks. For example, General Motors has an inventory of 122 days (or 4 months) of its Chevy Silverado and GMC Sierra according to a report from Reuters, or 50% higher than the typical industry inventory of 80 days.

But GM isn’t the only automaker in distress. Chrysler, Toyota and Ford also are behind their projected sales, with 93 days inventory for the first two makers and 79 days for the third respectively.

It seems like US carmakers are beginning to worry about the rising inventory of their big pickup trucks. For example, General Motors has an inventory of 122 days (or 4 months) of its Chevy Silverado and GMC Sierra according to a report from Reuters, or 50% higher than the typical industry inventory of 80 days.

But GM isn’t the only automaker in distress. Chrysler, Toyota and Ford also are behind their projected sales, with 93 days inventory for the first two makers and 79 days for the third respectively.

When I say, “Electric Pickup,” you no doubt think of either the Ssangyong Actyon Sports-derived Phoenix SUT or one of those toy-like, Chinese-built neighborhood electric vehicles. What you may not think of is a bright green 1958 Chevy Apache owed by Canada’s Steam Whistle Brewery and recharged via wind power.

No, this isn’t a late April Fool’s Day joke: this is serious. And being green is serious business for Steam Whistle, which – among other things – uses renewable energy, recycles damn-near everything and supports various environmental causes as a sideline to its beer brewing enterprise.

Brewery manager Mike Kiraly came up with the idea of electrifying the ol’ girl and even uses it as his daily driver. He explains his brainwave: “What if we could take a sexy vintage ride, save it from the metal scrap heap and outfit it with a zero-tailpipe-emissions engine. Old-school style combined with a modern conscience.”

Ford has issued a massive recall action for its top-selling U.S. model, the F-150 pickup truck, of which around 1.2 million units are involved. The move comes after Ford agreed in February to recall more than 150,000 F-150 vehicles built between 2004 and 2006 for possible airbag faults. Read more »

If we didn’t know better, we’d say that Ford is trying to wipe out the competition with its F-150 pickup truck, or as some may know it, the Ferd F-Teehthousand. The latest victim of the F-150 after the memorable stomping of a Ferrari F-150 is a brand new 2011 Dodge Challenger SRT8, which judging by the bodykit, stripes, alloy wheels and badges, is the 392 limited edition with the 470-horsepower V8 Hemi.

The driver of the Dodge’s muscle car was waiting for the light when a Ford F-150 decided to give the Challenger an unnecessary -and quite painful- rear-end makeover. Follow the break to watch the clip.