Eggshelled colored washing machine, or not. Selling sustained numbers of 400,000 cars per year makes up for a whole lot of name calling.


Actually, Taurus had a rough start, not finish. Taurus had quite a few recalls when it 1st came out. But Ford under Don Peterson was a totally different beast than Ford of the late 90s and early decade. Ford quickly got all the cars back in for repairs, went overboard in keeping customers happy, and immediately made running improvements which helped give the Taurus it's quality reputation. The only other issue the cars ever had was Ford's nortorious V6 gasket failures of the mid 90s.

Changing the name of the 2 year old, and not very well selling Five Hundred to the far more well known Taurus (along with a better redesign) would no doubt boost sales.

But I think the Fusion is a far better successor to the Taurus. Most people don't remember that the Taurus' claim to fame (beyond value and dependability) was as a design leader, and being very stylish.... something far more accurately done by the Fusion. The Five Hundred is closer to what the Taurus became in the end. A nice, unnoticable, competent sedan in the same vein as a Camry.

 

so if Taurus comes back..we might be seeing the MKZ go back to a name??

 

Looking back, I wonder what Ford was thinking letting the Taurus wither away and die. The whole down hill slide started with the '96 redesign, Ford tryed to be groundbreaking like the 1st generation Taurus but it was received with mixed emotions, even though you see a ton of them on the roads. The new V8 SHO at the time was a let down, considering at the time you could buy a better styled Grand Prix GTP w/SC V6 and blow the doors off of the V8 SHO. The '99-'00 face lift helped a lot, but 6-7 model years later and nothing changed, what was Ford thinking. The Camry got two redesigns during that period.

I don't consider the Fusion a Taurus replacement. While our car Intrigue was being re-built after being hit, I drove a rental Fusion for a day. I like the styling but once inside I found it to be cramped. It was hard for me to get in and out with out hitting my head. The Taurus had a whole lot more room inside. Fit-n-finish was good but everything had a cheap look and feel to it. Of course this was a basic fleet rental car so a fully loaded leather interior Fusion might be better. Anyways I drove it for one day and returned it for something else.

I would like to see the Taurus name return to Ford with a fresh new direction for them.

 

Would be nice. Ford sure is wasting a lot of auto show brochures.