When he arrived in Dearborn, Michigan, about three years ago, Ford CEO Alan Mullaly asked his minions why the Taurus name had been dropped. After listening to several answers from junior execs, he realized that Ford changed names to escape the bad reputations the cars inevitably developed. Mullaly likely noticed that a Ford truck is always an F-series: nothing to be ashamed of there. An F-series is an exceptionally good product. Mullaly said there would be no more running away. So the Taurus name was revived. No longer the classic mid-size sedan of the past, the 2010 Taurus is a super-sized family sedan—an alternative to crossover SUVs.
Prime Numbers
- Price: $29,595. As Tested: $32,390
- Engine: 3.5-liter DOHC V6
- Horsepower: 263 hp @ 6,250
- Torque: 249 @ 4,500
- Drivetrain: Front-engine, all-wheel-drive with six-speed automatic transmission
- Suspension F/R: MacPherson struts/multi-link independent
- Length: 202.9-in.
- Width: 85.7-in. (including mirrors)
- Height: 60.7-in.
- Wheelbase: 112.9-in.
- Weight: 4,224 lb.
Who’s The Buyer
This car is for you if:
- You’re a traditionalist and want a proper sedan rather than a crossover like a Ford Edge or Toyota Highlander; and you need a real family sedan and not a comparably priced but much smaller German car like an Audi A3.
- You live in a northern region where the all-wheel drive system will serve ably in winter.
- You enjoy one- or two-week vacations by car; the Taurus will deliver an excellent touring experience.
This car is not for you if:
- You have no family and thus don’t need the room; if so, get yourself a comparably priced but much smaller and sportier German car.
- You don’t yet understand that Ford engineering has been turned around by former Boeing exec and current Ford CEO Alan Mullaly.
- You don’t want to explain your purchase to neighbors who think anything from Detroit is iffy.
Alternatives To Consider
- Toyota Avalon. The Japanese Buick, about to receive a significant overhaul. In sales volumes and quality, the gold standard for this type of super-sized family sedan. Not available with all-wheel drive, but Avalon changed the game in this small portion of the market.
- Nissan Maxima. Handsome design that shares more with Infiniti than lesser Nissans. Powered by Nissan’s phenomenal 3.7-liter V6. Expensive if you go for top trim levels.
- Hyundai Genesis. The Joker in the pack, a rear-wheel drive luxury car for $32K and change. Not as large or roomy, with an undeveloped image.
- Buick Lucerne CXL. Buick needs an image makeover because the cars are getting pretty good, yet no one under the age of 97 will take a look. Lucerne is available with a 3.9 V6 or a V8. Handsome exterior, great interior, excellent safety features, plus tricks like magneto-rheological suspension tuning. Too bad so many Americans hate themselves.
WHEN THE ORIGINAL FORD FIVE HUNDRED was unveiled at the Ford Design Center in Dearborn, Michigan, Ford’s design boss, J Mays, argued that it ushered in a new approach to American automotive design. Our ever-humble Executive Editor Sawyer laughed out loud at these remarks because the car was obviously derived from VW Passat designs that were at least six years old when the Five Hundred was mocked up in clay. Mays did not take kindly to the outburst and stopped mid-sentence to confront Sawyer, the assembled press corps standing witness. Sawyer pointed out that the emperor had no clothes. J’s a politician, presenter, and manager of designers, not a lead designer. The Five Hundred made the VW Phaeton, another over-sized Passat and automotive white elephant, look positively stunning. At least VW saved face by mutating the Phaeton’s fundamental engineering into a range of incredible Bentleys.
Which leads us to the 2010 Ford Taurus, which I had a chance to drive a few weeks ago on Santiago Canyon and other beautifully maintained roads near the Ford Advanced Design Center in Irvine, CA. What a difference clear-headed leadership can make in a few short years. Like the Phaeton beast that became an elegant Bentley, the excellent Volvo-derived underpinnings of the dumpy Ford Five Hundred have become something far more impressive.
Ford CEO Alan Mullaly and his engineering taskmaster, Derrick Kuzak, are the true story with the 2010 Taurus. In less than three years, former Boeing man Mullaly has turned around Ford product engineering and design, along with manufacturing. He’s bruised a lot of puffed up egos along the way, told more than a few Cockneys at Ford of Europe to retire, and thankfully fired most of the jackass MBAs who populated Ford marketing when I worked at Ford Special Vehicle Team. Good for you, Alan. Keep swinging that heavy foot when necessary. Ford was far more screwed up three years ago than GM is now, yet look at the progress?
Twenty years ago Taurus was a mainstream family sedan like Camry or Accord. Now it competes with super-sized family sedans like the Buick Lucerne and Toyota Avalon. The car may be much larger than in the past, but it’s a fairly impressive piece of equipment. I’m a little surprised to find myself writing those words.
Engine, Transmission, Drivetrain
I had no chance to drive the twin-turbo Taurus SHO, but the SHO is a niche vehicle. I’d like to find out if it really is a value-for-money alternative to an Audi A6, but perhaps that opportunity will arrive sometime later.
More important is the conventional Taurus with its 263 hp 3.5-liter V6. And that engine sings a pleasant if quiet tune, with good upper intake sound (that’s the sound of air rushing into the engine through all those valves popping open and shut at a high rate of speed). In spite of the Taurus’s considerable weight—a point we’ll cover further down the screen—the engine has more than enough power.
Shifts of the “SelectShift” six-speed automatic transmission were well damped yet positive. In the course of a 40-minute drive on canyon roads, I only had one upshift turn a bit slushy. The transmission and engine computer control engineers must have shared a cubicle during development: with a light but deliberate squeeze on the throttle pedal, you get a precise downshift, perfect for squirting past a dawdling tourist in a rental car. Or you can pull the paddleshifters mounted on the steering wheel, drop down a couple of gears and accelerate more aggressively, like when passing a dawdling tourist in a Winnebago. When you reach for a lower gear, the engine and transmission ECUs speak to each other (that means the software coding works brilliantly), and the engine revs are matched for the gear and vehicle speed. Nicely done. Very nicely done.
Suspension, Steering, Brakes
The powertrain is pretty well sorted, but that’s not the best of it. Now, the good part. Though some journalists will call the Taurus merely adequate, they miss the point, as usual. Family cars like the Taurus are not meant to steer like Ferraris—and if they did, Ford, Toyota, and Honda would have trouble selling Fusions, Corollas and Accords. The Taurus has remarkably good steering. It tracks beautifully, with no penchant for wandering across the road. It’s also not adversely affected by bad road surface. It has good feel when coming “off-center,” meaning the initial steering movement into a corner is accurate and satisfying. Would I prefer a bit more heft to it? Yeah, it’s a little on the light side, but then I’m not the customer. I’ve driven luxury sport coupes lately that don’t steer as well as the Taurus.
Now, let’s move into more esoteric points—that are incredibly significant in the story here. Considering the Taurus’s massive proportions, suspension tuning is excellent. When you enter a corner, the Taurus has a predictable roll rate. It doesn’t fall over, the outside front tire doesn’t start squalling, and you don’t feel like you’re in a canoe being pitched around on the waves. None of that. The Taurus rolls in a smooth, predictable, and controlled manner, then sets as you glide through a bend. When you come out of the corner, the body stands up just the same way, with no wallow or slop, which means the engineers paid close attention to rebound damping on the shocks. It’s called transitional handling, meaning the car moves easily and smoothly going from left to right to left again. You want that in a human metaphor? When you do side-to-side knee bends to warm up before exercising, you move in a smooth, even and predictable manner, your muscles working to control the movement.
The final achievement, and one Editor Sawyer discovered is a major engineering goal for Ford when he was quizzing a Ford suspension engineer a while ago, is roll couple. Throughout the vehicle lineup, Ford is paying attention to something that seems obvious, yet many lesser car companies don’t understand: making sure the front and rear suspensions work together to control how the car rolls (and thus feels to the driver) in corners. That’s called roll couple. The Taurus engineers didn’t think of the front and rear suspensions as separate entities, but instead accepted that they must work together. This really comes down to countless hours on a handling course playing with spring rates and sway bars (reference human metaphor in the paragraph above).
I’m in the mood for metaphors. If you want to understand roll couple, imagine a Golden Retriever (or perhaps in the case of the very large Taurus, a St. Bernard) chasing the Frisbee you’re throwing at the park: the four legs move in perfect coordination, keeping the dog’s center of gravity balanced even when the dog has to run around people or leap over other dogs. This is a primitive metaphor, but a hunting dog’s front and rear legs deliver excellent “roll couple.”
During the course of my drive, I made one aggressive stop. The pedal is nicely weighted, and progressive, probably the right tuning for the target buyer if a touch on the light side for my tastes. It sends clear signals to your brain about how much harder you need to press to get the stopping power you want.
Thanks to what I imagine is a whole lot of sound dampening, the cabin is quiet, with little tire or suspension noise. Taurus is no luxury car, but it is remarkably refined and quiet.
Here you can link with a PDF that covers a wide array of electronic and braking safety technologies Ford has made standard or is offering on the Taurus. I don’t want to get bogged down describing all this, and frankly the descriptions here are entirely serviceable.
Body, Design, Quality
Why do I keep hammering the point about the car’s size? Because Taurus is a significant evolution of the Ford Five Hundred, which was based not on the Volvo S80’s architecture, but that of…the XC90. Yes, that’s why the Taurus stands so tall and has so much room. It’s a Volvo crossover CUV mutated into a family sedan. A full 4,224 lb. with AWD, Taurus is not unlike other vehicles splitting the difference between CUV and sedan (e.g., Toyota Venza, upcoming Accord Crosstour).
Approaching the Taurus, the first thing you notice is the height of the front and rear decks. When I stand next to the car, the top of the rear fender is a little below my lowest rib—and I’m six three. The doors are huge, they open wide and it’s easy to climb in and out. Old folks with bad hips will like it just as much as grandchildren who want to perform back flips into the enormous rear seat.
Also, the trunk is monstrous, almost like the trunk of a Fifties Detroit sedan. Twenty cubic feet—with flat sidewalls and a flat floor, all 20 cubic feet are usable. The rear seats fold forward to expand cargo capacity, but I suspect this feature will only be used on rare occasion when bringing something home from Lowe’s. It’s ideal for a family vacation, with ample luggage space.
Ford had pre-production cars at the event I attended, so it’s reasonable to expect the Taurus you’ll find at the dealership will have even higher quality. The cars I saw were pretty well bolted together. Gaps between major body panels were tight and even (that means engineering, design, stamping and assembly have all been executed with a fair amount of precision). Panel finish (the inside edges of doors, trunk lids and hoods) was reasonable, a big step away from the slop one found on Fords of the past decade. Clearly Ford is adopting proven Toyota principles about design for manufacturing and assembly (DFMA). And maybe the union workers have it through their heads that if the quality isn’t there, the only jobs they’ll get in the future will involve flipping burgers at a McDonald’s in Tulsa, Oklahoma.
As to design, Taurus is handsome, very much so. Gone is the uber-Passat fat and sloppy design of the Ford Five Hundred, a car for which J Mays should hang his head in shame. (Ah, come on, J. You live in London now, make millions, and wear very snappy suits, so we’ll forgive you.) The car was penned by Moray Callum, who spent years with Mazda. Moray’s brother is the chief designer at Jaguar. Moray drew on themes from the Interceptor show car of a few years ago, penned by J May’s long-time partner in crime, Freeman Thomas. For the first time in two decades, the Taurus is both handsome and unabashedly American. Enormous trunk or not, the rear three-quarters is an especially good view with well-resolved lines and a nice taillight design.
Again, here is the link to the PDF on technologies. MyKey is of particular interest, as you can loan the car to Junior, but limit his maximum speed. Ford’s research with families found that teens initially hated the technology, but once they realized their parents would offer greater latitude and more drive time, the teens came around. In short, Junior, you won’t be able to break 60 or 70 MPH, but you can take the car out more often. Not a bad deal.
Note the MyKey text at the bottom of the gauge, specifying how fast Junior can drive the car
Interior, Ergonomics
Audi may still hold the title for best interiors in the business, but the Taurus has much to recommend it. The materials quality is high, seams line up, and no ragged edges can be found. The rear seat more than passes the classic test: set up the driver’s seat to fit yourself, then climb in behind it. In the rear seat I had ample foot, leg, and shoulder room, and adequate head room, a rare occasion for me.
The design is not so much busy as complex, with an array of materials and finishes. Usually such designs are a concern over time, as pieces can vibrate loose. Based on the apparent quality of materials, design and assembly, I don’t think that will be the case here. The gauges are lit in an appealing aqua blue, not unlike the Timex Indiglo watches that are so easy to read in a dark movie theater. The gauge nacelles are deep cones, reminiscent of Detroit designs from the Sixties, yet are in no way painfully and deliberately retro. Instead, they’re a functional design and thus legitimate. (As an aside, this is the thinking that will bring Ford, and perhaps GM, back to life. They need to embrace the bold, forward-looking approach of their hey days, from the Thirties to the mid Sixties, when Detroit looked forward and led the way.)
Not every car interior needs the chilly precision our German friends deliver. Like the exterior design, the Taurus interior is American in the best sense of the word.
Competitive Set
Taurus is a well-executed piece, but it can only be considered a niche player against Avalon and the comparable Buicks. To succeed, Taurus must offer value for money against Camry and Accord, or more specifically Toyota Venza, Toyota Avalon, and the upcoming Honda Accord Crosstour.
The car I drove was a mid-grade SEL with all-wheel drive and a heavy dollop of options, including Ford’s remarkable Sync wireless electronics system. On ford.com, I built such a Taurus and the MSRP was $32,390. That gives Taurus a $2,400 advantage over a nicely equipped front-drive Toyota Avalon, and brings the added benefit of all-wheel drive.
Compared to a Toyota Venza with V6 and AWD, Taurus SEL is within a few dollars. No price advantage, but the Taurus is in the game. As much a choice between body style and configuration as anything else, though obviously Toyota has the reputation for quality and Ford has to prove itself every day…for the next 10 to 20 years.
Another option is the Nissan Maxima, most likely the SV at $33,180. Front drive, great power, handsome body design, and plenty of room. With the Taurus, Ford is taking on the stars of the Asian world.
And now, the Joker, the Hyundai Genesis, which is the “disruptive technology” in the family sedan market. With a $2,000 option package including a 14-speaker audio system, a V6 Genesis costs…$34,250. Genesis is not as big as Taurus or Avalon, but this is a rear-wheel drive “luxury” sedan with a leather interior starting at $32K. That makes a hash of everyone’s calculations.
Finally, either of the Buicks, Lucerne or Lacrosse. Buick is saddled with the dumpiest image in the US market and I wonder if they can get past it. Yet the cars have evolved considerably, and for the better. If you’re out shopping, I’d suggest taking a look at these two cars, and put aside preconceived notions, just as you must with the Taurus. Idiotic ads notwithstanding–no young dude is going to drive a Lacrosse on the streets of Manhattan like it’s 1951–if you put an Asian badge on a Buick, it would sell. GM needs a real leader like Mullaly to run the company as if they’re at war—because they are at war.
Conclusion
If Taurus is an indication of the changes wrought in Ford product design, engineering, quality and manufacturing by Mullaly, there’s reason to hope Ford won’t end up as “Government Motors,” or an Italian comic opera like Chrysler. Taurus is an excellent family sedan with no reason to make apologies when compared with Asian competitors. My hat’s off to Ford CEO Alan Mullaly and his wingman, Derrick Kuzak.
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