Porsche 911 Celebrates 50 Years, Ford Adds 450 Jobs, And 50 Ways To Leave Your Beater

This is The Morning Shift, our one-stop daily roundup of all the auto news that's actually important — all in one place at 9:00 AM. Or, you could spend all day waiting for other sites to parse it out to you one story at a time. Isn't your time more important?

Last week we did things a little differently by putting the gears inside the comments below to make it easier for you to comment on individual gears. I think there were some benefits to it, but let's try it out the other way.

I still encourage you to make your own gears in the comments that we can heart-click to the top.

1st Gear: Porsche 911 To Be Featured At Goodwood

This year's Goodwood Festival of Speed will feature the Porsche 911 as its star, with Stuttgart's finest sports car celebrating its 50th anniversary. Examples of each of the seven generations of the 911 will be on hand, including rare examples from the amazing Porsche Museum in Stuttgart.

A 1967 model will also travel around the world to five continents as an ambassador for what Porsche does. It's a celebration of Porsche "Tradition," which for some reason makes me think of Fiddler on the Roof. TRADITION!

Well, if I was a rich man, I'd take either of the gorgeous examples used in the topshot on this post.

2nd Gear: Ford Adds 450 Jobs To Cleveland Plant

According to The Detroit News , Ford's going to bring 450 jobs to the Brook Park plant near Cleveland to produce its 2.0-liter EcoBoost motor. This engine is currently built in Valencia, Spain.

A turbocharged engine coming out of a Ford plant in Ohio? Perhaps this is because I now own a Merkur XR4Ti, but I'm reminded of another turbocharged four produced in a little plant in Lima, Ohio.

When you think Ford, four-cylinder, and turbocharging. Think Ohio.

3rd Gear: Used Cars Still Worth Money

It remains a good time to sell a used car, and a terrible time to buy one. This report from the Wall Street Journal nicely lays out the reasons why.

"The shortage of used cars stems from the deep plunge in new-car sales between 2008 and 2010, and the virtual disappearance of new-car leases during the financial crisis. As a result, three-year-old cars are now hard to find and even older models are holding their value.

Another factor is a change by the three Detroit U.S. auto makers. To keep factories humming, they once leased tens of thousands of new cars to rental car fleets and then moved them onto dealer lots as used models after a few months."

4th Gear: Ford Wants To Be Big In Japan

Japan loves selling us cars, hates buying our cars. They're one of the most protectionist markets in the world, which is a shame, because you know Japanese people would love to roll into the Ginza in a Ford F-250.

Per Bloomberg 's Craig Trudell, less than 4% of auto sales in Japan in 2012 came from non-Japanese brands.

You know who'd like to fix that? Ford. They're calling on President Obama to pressure Japan to let them compete in the Japanese market. Given how many Toyota bBs have been turned into 1960s Dodge vans maybe there's a demand.

5th Gear: Honda Making Moves

Honda Motor Co's promoted its CFO Fumihiko Ike to Chairman, and is making Tetsuo Iwamura the head of North American operations. All of this will happen on April 1st, according to Auto News , so this isn't the world's most obtuse April Fools Jokes.

We love the idea of a guy named Ike being the chairman. We like Ike. Everyone likes Ike.

It will be interesting to see how Iwamura does given the continued success of Honda in the North American market seemingly despite their best efforts to build uninspiring cars.

Photo Credit: AP

via Jalopnik http://jalopnik.com/355494480