85_Ranger4x4's Detroit TRS Trip

First came down the pipe New Year's Day, the wife could tell I was pretty ecstatic at the opportunity and pretty much immediately gave me a green light to go. Ford was covering travel and food, things like this don't cross my path every day. Getting info from Ford was arduous but we eventually got our flight info the Thursday before we left.

So I was cleared to go, it was supposed to snow and my flight left Omaha (an hour away) at 8am so we stayed Saturday night at the in-laws in Omaha.

Poor pups (Bullitt (mine) on the left, Roush (wife's) on the right) were kind of sad to see me leave:



A little something for an aviation nut such as myself to oodle over at Eppley.





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My noble steed for the trip to Detroit, a CRJ700. Nice jet, fairly quiet, about an hour and a half flight after deicing.



Me representing as they took forever and a day to deice the A319 in front of us.



Flying over Lake Michigan.


Arrived at the airport on time, met Jim and proceed to meet with the Ford people. They loaded us up into a car and drove us to our hotel to get settled. Very nice accommodations at "The Henry" hotel in Detroit.







7th floor view








We had access to a conferance room as a "home away from home" and were told there is just about always food and drink available for us. So my lunch was sliced grilled steak, Mahi Mahi and potatoes.





We were the first ones there, eventually everybody trickled in. From left to right, Bobby Walter, Fastpakr, 97RangerXLT, James Oaks and myself. Our tour guide was awesome... but she didn't know how use the two stage button on a camera to get it to focus. Other guys got pics, hopefully they surface soon.

HOLY COW WE ARE THERE!!



That name sounds familiar for some reason... He was five rows ahead of us.


These things were in our seats... some kind of a game where you press the right sequence and win a new truck maybe?
[url=https://flic.kr/p/FoDh7Q]

Nice little truck watches us anxiously wait for the big moment.



Bill Ford gives his speech:



Ford Motor Company CEO James Hackett gives his speech:


We were also able to see the release of the new Edge ST. Thing sounds like a beast, 2.7 Ecoboost, huge Brembo brakes, Pirelli P-Zero tires... just what every family needs for a family car.

Ok, now for the main event! The fobs were actually to control the intro video, different situations would come up and you would press A or B to vote for how you would handle it. My camera didn't have enough field of view to catch the options on the sides.





















It may not stay on a production truck but the truck there had a gascap. Most newer Fords are going to a capless setup.















They had a Ranger simulator there too which was pretty cool



'97 and I riding in said simulator.

And then the Bullitt reveal...












They also had a cool Bullitt thing where they did movie type things which were very cool.









They had a neat thing setup where they made a movie poster with you in it and replicated the parking lot scene with Molly McQueen but with you driving.

After that it was time to head back to our humble hotel for supper.



Ford rep said order whatever you want, we will cover it. I had a ribeye steak that was very good. The spaghetti squash was kind of different but not bad.



Polished it off with a cute little carrot cake cupcake. It was only $3 and well worth it.

that pancake engine is awesome!



you should have got some pics of the goat!


great perspective and detail!

something to note...the henry is in Dearborn....somebody is bound to mention it...

Molly told a true and awesome story about her grandfather for that reveal..I wonder if that is available?

bobbywalter said:

you should have got some pics of the goat!

Click to expand...

I thought about it but didn't want to steal your thunder, I figured you would want to be the one to show it off after you brought it home.

(this hotel was full of artwork, the goat in question was a huge ornate goat statue that was really cool in the lobby, a lot of things were for sale including the goat)

I was going to get a pic of it later, I thought we were coming back to the hotel before leaving and then it was kind of a rush when we found out we were not. Crazy I took 400+ pictures in 30 hours and I keep thinking of stuff I didn't get. The wall of gear behind the Ranger... I have one pic of one quote. Why didn't I take more?

bobbywalter said:

Molly told a true and awesome story about her grandfather for that reveal..I wonder if that is available?

Click to expand...

Molly's story is in my video, for the Mustang I am sure it is out there on youtube in better resolution. Oddly for the Ranger yesterday I couldn't find anything better than what I shot on youtube of the whole thing.

Wife said to bring the gopro, I said it would have too wide of a field of view for what we are doing... and as it turned out my digital camera didn't have enough field of of view for what we were doing. And I don't think it liked the music... gopro can take an external mic.

Oh well, I just tried to make sure the camera was catching it and live in the moment. I have been to things before where I watched something awesome at the time thru a 2" LCD screen and never really got to see and experience it although I was right there.

So far we are just up to Sunday night, I still have Monday pictures to post yet tonight.

85_Ranger4x4 said:

I thought about it but didn't want to steal your thunder, I figured you would want to be the one to show it off after you brought it home.

(this hotel was full of artwork, the goat in question was a huge ornate goat statue that was really cool in the lobby, a lot of things were for sale including the goat)

I was going to get a pic of it later, I thought we were coming back to the hotel before leaving and then it was kind of a rush when we found out we were not. Crazy I took 400+ pictures in 30 hours and I keep thinking of stuff I didn't get. The wall of gear behind the Ranger... I have one pic of one quote. Why didn't I take more?



Molly's story is in my video, for the Mustang I am sure it is out there on youtube in better resolution. Oddly for the Ranger yesterday I couldn't find anything better than what I shot on youtube of the whole thing.

Wife said to bring the gopro, I said it would have too wide of a field of view for what we are doing... and as it turned out my digital camera didn't have enough field of of view for what we were doing. And I don't think it liked the music... gopro can take an external mic.

Oh well, I just tried to make sure the camera was catching it and live in the moment. I have been to things before where I watched something awesome at the time thru a 2" LCD screen and never really got to see and experience it although I was right there.

So far we are just up to Sunday night, I still have Monday pictures to post yet tonight.

Click to expand...

Try this video :
https://youtu.be/Rjg_PTUCsiU

Sent from my SM-G930V using Tapatalk

Video no workie.

I didn't look too terribly long at break or last night. The one I found that showed everything had the audio transposed with something else. It showed everything great though.

Can you get to it now?

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Very cool guys!

I work at Michigan Assembly Plant and I can tell you everybody is very excited to get started on the new Ranger! May 5th is the last day of the Focus production and the following week I should be beginning my new training for Ranger. Things change by the minute here but rite now it looks like Job1 will be Nov 5th.

fastpakr said:

Can you get to it now?

Sent from my SM-G930V using Tapatalk

Click to expand...

Gold star for you!



The intro video is different. The choices selected are different than what was at the show. They went around the tree rather than pull it and thru the avalanche rather than spook the bear away.

deathbypsi said:

Very cool guys!

I work at Michigan Assembly Plant and I can tell you everybody is very excited to get started on the new Ranger! May 5th is the last day of the Focus production and the following week I should be beginning my new training for Ranger. Things change by the minute here but rite now it looks like Job1 will be Nov 5th.

Click to expand...

Cool.

I was poking around the Taco display and of one the Toyota guys there mentioned to someone else "did you notice they didn't announce where they were building the Ranger at the reveal?" implying it was going to be imported. I though to myself "because they announced it a year ago you dink"

85_Ranger4x4 said:

Gold star for you!



The intro video is different. The choices selected are different than what was at the show. They went around the tree rather than pull it and thru the avalanche rather than spook the bear away.

Click to expand...

You're right! I completely missed that it wasn't the original when skimming through it earlier. Weird...

Nice report 85_Ranger4x4

I forgot Sunday night I went to see what was going on on facebook. Ford Trucks released a deal about the new Ranger and someone tried to burn them... and was politely burned back. Kinda funny.



Anyway got up at 7:30, down to the breakfast buffet in our conference room just before 8 for breakfast which was pretty good. I picked out my stuff, turned around and on the other side of the room they had a guy cooking omelets to order with two electric skillets.



After that fastpackr and I went outside to witness the legendary beast that is Bobby Walters' truck.



Bobby was also kind enough to bring three transfer cases along to show me the differences in size and shape between a Ford NP208, Jeep NP208 and he threw in a heavy NP205 for comparison.


We loaded up and went back to the show.

The new Silverado... kinda took the long way to the Ford display to see what else was there. Hardly put a dent in the show .



























This was at the ZF display.

















Wife has been talking about updating her car so I had to send her this... I don't think she is going to go for it.











The oblivious model kind of kills the theme they tried to have going with the car launching...











Cuttaway of a Hemi running with lights, very awesomely cool.









The new Ram.