2008 Ford Taurus Limited

OUR TAKE: Slapping the Taurus name onto the Five Hundred was a misbegotten idea. Does Ford think it will fool anyone? Taking the movie Gigli and renaming it The Godfather doesn??™t make it a classic.

And the original Taurus was a classic. This car is not a Taurus. Ford president and CEO Alan Mulally was probably right to insist that the name be brought back, but he??™s not a car guy. Somehow, the car people at Ford let him rename the Five Hundred when it??™s the Fusion that most represents the things Taurus stood for, among which was a sensible size for American families, a sense of style that wasn??™t so much cutting-edge as it was handsome and enduring, and a reasonably entertaining driving experience at a more than competitive price. The Taurus was the best seller in the country for several years, you??™ll remember, and no American car has topped that chart since. The former owner of, say, an ??™88 or ??™92 Taurus who decides to give Ford another chance and finds this car on the sales floor wearing the same nameplate will not recognize it as a Taurus.

Then there??™s execution. The revamp with the Ford electric-razor grille is nice, but the car still looks like an overinflated previous-generation Passat. Yes, J Mays is responsible for both rooflines, but the similarity is quite striking when parked next to said Passat. Even the bumper cutouts for trunk access look similar. The original Taurus borrowed from Audi, so for this one to look a little VW-like is no great departure, but it doesn??™t look as fresh as the latest Toyota Camry/Honda Accord/Nissan Altima.

Inside, the materials and design aren??™t close to VW standards. Too many bits and pieces make up the dash, and while the wood trim avoids the trap of warping it into shapes only a sculptor could love, it looks tacked on rather than integrated. In Ford??™s favor, this Taurus has fewer rattles and squeaks inside than previous Five Hundreds we tested.

The bad decision really predates Mulally??”whenever Ford decided to replace the Taurus with two different cars, it was a bad call for a company facing the difficulties Ford faces. This Taurus is a better car than last year??™s Five Hundred in a lot of ways??”it looks less boring, it feels more substantial and quiet, and it has tauter handling (no wallow, but no canyon racer either)??”but unless Dearborn really means to drop the Crown Victoria platform, it??™s a car whose mission doesn??™t fit into the lineup.

That??™s right, Crown Vic. The Five Hundred/Taurus instead should be the replacement for the Crown Vic; heck, rename it again. Sure, Ford needs the CV for taxi and police fleets, but guess what? No one else is playing that game anymore. Keeping the Crown Vic around for those stuck-in-the-mud markets is foolish. This Taurus would make a fine taxi, and I bet the cops could adjust, too. If Ford needs to keep a large, rear-drive car in its lineup, it needs something like the Interceptor concept, not some fleetmobile that, by definition, imprisons you in the commodity market, playing to the least common denominator.

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