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Focus STs for SEMA include Lotus and Gulf liveries, rally-fied police car

Ford, as we mentioned on Saturday, is pulling out all the stops for November's SEMA show, bringing 57 vehicles to the Las Vegas event. Ford will be staggering the release of its SEMA flotilla, though, so expect to hear a lot about the new additions to the fleet in the weeks to come. We already showed you the Fiesta, Fiesta ST and Mustang models that made up the first batch of SEMA cars. Next up, we have a quartet of modded Focus STs joining Ford's SEMA roster.
Our first Focus ST (pictured above) sports the legendary livery of Gulf Racing. The orange-on-blue scheme, which Ford helped make famous at the 24 Hours of Le Mans, has been updated for 2013, with a more vibrant blue. This ST was built by Universal Technical Institute, while the exterior was done by Neil Tjin of Tjin Edition. Side exhausts, a Vortech supercharger and a Motiv Concepts high-flow cat allow the ST to breathe a bit easier, while Forgestar wheels contrast well with the iconic paint scheme.
Focus ST number two has been done-up by PM Lifestyle and is inspired by "Southern California car culture." Sporting a sleek, pale blue paint job, there's also no shortage of carbon fiber on the car's exterior. The 2.0-liter, turbocharged, four-cylinder engine has been massaged by the likes of Banks Power, COBB Tuning and Ford Racing, while the suspension is wearing a shiny, new set of coilovers and sway bars. The meaty brakes, tucked behind 19-inch, Rotiform wheels, come from Wilwood, while the cabin has been fitted with a pair of Sparco Chrono seats and five-point, Schroth harnesses.

How that awesome Mustang R/C car chase vid was made

We've reported on a few R/C car chase videos in the past. One in particular that stands out as a favorite is Zach King's "The Cliché RC Action Chase." It featured a pair of Ford Mustang coupes racing through a cardboard city, plowing into outdoor patios and busting through construction zones. It was wonderfully creative and fun to watch, yet we know there was more to its creation than a bunch of guys fooling around with a camera one afternoon.
Turns out we were right, as evidenced by this video produced by Ford that takes us behind the scenes of Zach's creation. The young filmmaker explains why he chose the Mustang to star in his video, as well as how the cardboard sets were created, what equipment they used for shooting and what it was like when his video went viral. Ford found the young filmmaker and produced the followup as part of its Mustang Countdown video series, which will see a new video about the Mustang culture released every week until the original muscle car's anniversary on April 17, 2014.
Want to make an RC chase video of your own? Yeah, we do too. Watch the behind-the-scenes video below (you can refresh yourself on the mini feature film, too) before you get started.

Ford paying $750 million just to close plant in Belgium

According to a report from Reuters, Ford is shelling out $750 million in a severance deal that will see the automaker close its facility in Genk, Belgium. The automaker reached this deal with the 4,000 hourly workers employed at the plant last week, which means the company will pay out an average of $187,500 per worker.
Ford is still negotiating with the 300 salaried workers at the factory, which currently produces the Mondeo sedan. All told, Ford expects to lose around $2 billion in Europe thanks in no small part to the region's ongoing economic downturn, and two more plants are scheduled to be shut down in Europe this year. The company will log its $750 million payout under "special items" for this quarter.
As you may recall, Ford took a similar path in the US back in 2009 when the domestic market took a spill. Back then, the company shelled out around $50,000 per employee with at least one year of experience, plus either $25,000 toward a new car or an extra cash payment of $20,000. It would seem the cost of closing plants in Belgium is a much harder pill to swallow than in the States...