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Resurrecting Ford’s Tarnished Taurus Name Ford’s front wheel drive large and mid-size entries have been in disarray since 1996 when Ford introduced the third generation Taurus. The “monocle” Taurus with its round backlite violated the truisms it established itself ten years earlier.
Listening to the criticisms of journalists at the evolutionary change from the 1st generation to the 2nd generation Taurus, Ford decided to break the mold and go bold with the DN101 – its 3rd Generation car. Even if the styling had been accepted, Ford reduced the size of its rear seat and trunk. These were characteristics Taurus had excelled in when it was the top selling car in America for a few years.
With retail buyers rejecting Taurus, Ford relegated it to rental and commercial fleet service where it languished. Taurus’ sales volume and image deteriorated as Japanese automakers kept their Accords, Camrys, Altimas fresh and more exciting. By the middle of the first decade of the 21st Century, Ford had decided to drop the Taurus and throw the nameplate in the trash bin.

Arrive Alan Mulally Ford’s new CEO. Not being privy to the machinations leading to dumping Taurus and its name, he asked the simple questions. Why? Why? Why?
Perennial Winner of AutoPacific’s Ideal Vehicle Award At the same time, Ford was producing the Five Hundred – an outstanding large car with characterless styling perfectly targeted at the oldest buyer group. The Five Hundred and its stablemate the Mercury Montego won every AutoPacific Ideal Vehicle Award for the Large Car Class when they were on the market. When the Five Hundred and Montego received facelifts for 2007 they also received new names at Mulally’s insistence – going back to the Taurus/Sable nomenclature of the earlier Ford mid-size cars. Taurus and Sable kept winning AutoPacific’s IVAs. This is quite an accomplishment.
Mulally prodded Ford’s product development community to pull ahead a planned 2011 model year major reskin for the Taurus by 12-months. That pull-ahead results in an all-new Taurus for the 2010 model year arriving in August 2009.

Clearly the objective of the reskin is to achieve more distinctive styling. While not necessarily head-turning, the Taurus will stand out in a crowd. It has Euro-American styling with an aggressive face and a much more sporty profile. More about the profile later.

Two Dramatically Different Personalities Having a chance to drive the new Taurus between Knoxville, TN and Asheville, NC last week showed a very competent large car with two very, very different personalities. The 3.5L V6 Taurus with its three models – SE, SEL and Limited – provides the volume base for the car. The 3.5L Taurus is available with front wheel drive and optional all wheel drive. The range topper is the Taurus SHO with its 3.5L EcoBoost V6 engine and all wheel drive.
The base engine is simply “adequate” for a car the size and heft of the Taurus. With 263 horsepower and 249 lb-ft of torque, the car is easy to drive but somewhat ponderous. It handles competently and has an outstanding ride with excellent quietness. This is just what the Taurus buyer wants.
The uplevel SHO comes with Ford’s new technology EcoBoost powertrain putting out 365-horsepower with 350 lb-ft of torque. The EcoBoost transforms the Taurus into a high performance Q-Ship – stealthy and fast. The EcoBoost V6 delivers all that power with the same fuel economy ratings as the base engine. That’s the magic of EcoBoost. Of course, with spirited driving that the SHO will demand, those fuel economy numbers are only academic.
Package – Taurus’ Achilles Heel The Taurus achieves more distinctive styling at the expense of package. The faster windshield and A-Pillars make the front seats more difficult to get into and out of. The lower roof reduces headroom and visibility. The lower seating position is less comfortable than the “Command Driving Position” of the Five-Hundred/Taurus. The rear seat position has been pushed forward and upward for “stadium seating”. This reduces rear seat knee room and headroom. The faster backlite design and smaller rear doors make the rear seats very difficult to get into and out of. Once you are in, the rear seats are not a very comfortable place.
Ford has taken a car that has an outstanding package and compromised almost every area of excellence to achieve more expressive styling. This is in an attempt to make the car more attractive to a broader range of buyers – those more enthusiastic, young-at-heart, affluent. That is an admirable objective, but perhaps Ford has gone too far – pushed the envelope too sporty at the expense of function. Hopefully, they have guessed right and our perception is off target.

Interior – Mainstream Tour de Force As compromised as the package is, the interior of the new Taurus is excellent. The seats are very comfortable and available with heated, cooled and massage functions. (This may be the first application of cooled seats in a Ford brand vehicle – Ford has liked to point out that cooled seats are a Lincoln feature). The instrumentation is easy to read and switch gear very easy to reach. There is quite a bit of obvious commonality between the Taurus and other Ford D3 platform vehicles – MKS, Flex and MKT – and this is a good thing.
Feature Loaded Ford has added numerous high tech features to the Taurus making perhaps the most contemporary large car from a technology standpoint. Sure Taurus has SYNC and Ford’s outstanding navigation and Sony audio system, but then there are more… blind spot monitoring system, collision warning, cross traffic alert, adaptive cruise control, SecurCode, MyKey, Multi-Contour seats, EcoBoost.
Priced to Sell? Ford Executives would be ecstatic if the Taurus were to sell over 100,000 units per year. Having at one time sold over 300,000 units, Taurus sold only 52,667 in 2008. This is not a good showing for a mainstream brand and a high volume model. The Taurus SE model has a base price of $25,995. The high volume SEL is $27,995. The Limited is priced at $31,995. Checking all the boxes on the order form, you can get a Limited to touch $40,000. The SHO with EcoBoost is base priced at $37,995 and that includes all wheel drive.
Clearly the new Taurus is extremely competitive and competent. It will be interesting to see how Ford can position the new Taurus and effectively get it away from its rental car image so effectively established over the past decade.