Introduction: The Ford Taurus was one of the most famous cars that Ford has ever made. The original featured the infamous jelly bean styling and shared the #1 spot with the Honda Accord during its prime. Over the years Ford had failed to update the Taurus and quickly the Camry overtook the Taurus. The 3rd generation revamped the styling but was even more controversial than the first two generations, yet the crucial problems from the earlier Tauruses were left unresolved. Lastly the 4th generation Taurus, Ford did listen to the styling complaints but now the car had become so generic and not noteworthy that it survived only as a rental car which led to Ford dropping it in favour of the Fusion. Alan Mulally back then the new and now current CEO was surprised Ford allowed this name to die out, due to some of the success of the Fusion this meant the Taurus would no longer be a midsized car. There was a struggling car by the bland name of the Five Hundred which Mulally decided to rename the Taurus, now the Taurus has become Ford's flagship vehicle.
The Ford Taurus was one of the earliest vehicles I've driven in this job. I drove this one on my first day and back then I had a low impression of American cars. I was not expecting much from the Taurus nor did I think much of it when I saw it.
Performance: The previous Ford Five Hundred suffered with a very weak engine in a market where 203 hp just wasn't enough making it the slowest of the full size cars. Ford corrected this problem in the new Taurus and gave this car a 3.5L V6 engine that produces 263 hp and 249 lb.ft of torque. An incredible improvement and possibly salvaging Ford's full sized car as something viable again. This engine is reasonably smooth for a Ford product back then and is pretty powerful. This meant an acceleration from 0-100 km/h in about 7.5 seconds which is rather good but not nearly as potent as Toyota or Nissan's 3.5L V6s which made all of those vehicles under 7 seconds. Still Ford was trying to rebuild an image and this was a start.
My Score: 8/10 - Not a incredible engine but its smooth and reasonably quiet, a much better engine than the Five Hundred's 3.0L.
Handling: The Taurus is a very large car and as such there will be some drawbacks to the handling over something smaller. Its roughly a 3600 lb car and I was surprised that the handling wasn't as sluggish as I'd expected from a big car. The vehicle also has some pretty good steering feedback, the very first thing I did was attempt to squeeze this big beast out of a tight section in a dealership parking lot and did it without a scratch. I don't know if the AWD handles that differently but the front wheel drive version is pretty good.
My Score: 8/10 - For a big car it is actually easy to drive, has good steering feel and handles surprisingly well.
Interior: The one thing that I didn't like from Ford products from the past were the pretty downright terrible interiors. The Ford Taurus was the first Ford I saw from this era that had a interior worthy of its price. Normally I jump into an American car and I'm shocked how awful it looks inside, I didn't with the Taurus. The materials in this interior were pretty decent and it wasn't as depressing as the old Focus. The downsides however, this interior was sort of generic looking, it just didn't stand out its almost easy to forget it. This vehicle is made in the USA, I didn't notice any problems so I think they're built pretty well.
My Score: 7/10 - A good effort by Ford, this interior was a bit too generic for my tastes.
Styling: By this point Ford had made it mandatory that all of its vehicles had to have the Gillete grille and compared to the old Five Hundred...I don't think it worked for the Taurus. It was a better implementation than the old Fusion but I didn't think it fit that well. The rear was alright looking but with silly tail lights. Its actually the variant of this car, the Taurus X that so far had the best Gillete grille implementation.
My Score: 5/10 - Sorry I didn't like it, but Ford gets a pass score for trying.
Value for Money: The biggest competitor for the Ford Taurus is clearly the Chrysler 300. Unfortunately the Taurus has no V8 to compete with the 300C but the V6 is a better one than the Chrysler V6. The 300 does have RWD as an advantage, but the Taurus does have AWD which may be more appealing. GM and Toyota at this point had a poor vehicle to compete against these two so in terms of value, this is a good Ford product and a decent flagship vehicle.
My Score: 8/10 - Its only got one real competitor at this point, its a much more refined product and its not a total bore like the old Taurus.
Overall: 36/50 - Proof that Ford was turning itself around before the financial crisis.
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