This new Taurus looks great.

Why not just bring the Mondeo? It’s the best looking Ford and isn’t in this country…

The illegally taken bring-your-kid-to-work-day mobile phone photograph, in all its grainy glory, shows abundantly more. Yes, it is a very good looking automobile and Ford should unwrap it or it might be unwrapped given the current situation. Why doesn’t Mulally drive the new post-kinetic Taurus on his historic drive to DC road trip?

Oh look, it’s a Falcon.

Global design language my arse. Ford has been talking global for 30 years but it never seems to happen.

Global design is what started the decline at Ford. The twin disasters from Europe, Alex Trotman and Jacques Nasser, spent bags of money on “world cars” that sunk in the US marketplace. All time record corporate profits slid and Ford left the car design business in North America for over ten years.

All I see is an ‘artist’s rendering.’ Hardly enough to judge the styling of the 2010 Taurus.

How can you guys comment on something that isn’t being shown?

Based upon the new Fords we saw at the LA event I have no reason to believe the new Taurus will look anything other than stunning. Detroit is the perfect place to unveil it simply because by the sounds of it there’s going to be precious little else competing for all the attention.

Ford Taurus is looking pretty hot in 2010 that Ford America, Ford Europe and Ford Australia work together on this proj. Ford Falcon is also coming to US and it will replace the large Ford Sedan like Grand Victoria. Ford should be on Global design long time ago, with bad Global marketing manager there is nothing you can do. Ford marketing manager has bring Ford down for 20 years now, it wasn’t because Jaguar, Range Rover, Austin Martin and Volvo. If those Marketing manager has done better job Ford will not sell any of these brand. Austin Martin and Jaguar was starting making money after the 2006 James Bond movie and the new XF roll out.

beemerdude, you cant imagine how creative youngster imagination can be whilst masturbating.

I guess this great ALL american car will be based on a Mazda platform built in Mexico by $4.99/hr workers and be designed by a german.

And they want a bailout?LOL The irony

Ford has brought the world to North America before and it didn’t work so don’t assume that just because Euro cars look nicer that they will sell better as well…. The Contour was a Mondeo and it flopped… The Fiesta was a huge car abroad and it flopped… The Probe was a European design and it flopped… The Escort was sold abroad too and it flopped…

I think that since cars are coming back in style Ford does have a good chance with this new Taurus… GM has way too many versions of the same car and that is why they suck… If Ford can get 1 great car in each major sector with a great, well known name, I think it will do great! Focus is a good name Taurus is a good name, Fusion is becoming a good name and even Fiesta is known to Americans (although it’s probably overwhelmingly negative)…

I like it. Better than the ugly crap (like Acura) coming out of Japan.

The Contour was watered down or “Americanized” so it flopped. The Probe was a reskinned Mazda MX6. It had its own problem apart from a less than desirable name. Among them are the faulty auto tranny, shared with the 626. The Fiesta should not be confused with the Festiva (later became the Aspire), they are not the same. The Escort sold abroad was not the same Escort that was available here. We did not get that wicked Escort RS Cosworth here. But I still wouldn’t call the U.S. spec Escort a failure. They sold a lot of those along side the Taurus in the 90s. It was only discontinued to make room for the Focus. So that was not a flop.

Considering some of your home grown Ford (Tempo, the potato on wheel Taurus of the late 90s, Thunderbird), the above mentioned cars aren’t much more a flop than them.

There was also the whole Merkur brand, but then it was not the xr4ti or Scorpio’s fault that Ford decided to pull the rug from underneath their owners and stopped supporting them.

Ford over complicated production as weel there were 105 variant of the Focus and the US model was different to the European one. I can understand changing suspension setups, but changing the whole drive train as well seems unnecessarily expensive. At least Ford are producing some interesting cars now maybe one day they will drop the daft chrome front they use in the US.

The new Taurus is not a European design, and no designers in Europe worked on it. It was designed in Dearborn by talented designers and managers who tried to incorporate the European look with the American look. This whole, “Ford of Europe has better designers” crap is getting on my nerves. They’re all designers and many of the ones in Dearborn are European and many of the ones in Europe are American and they often move from one area to the other. The problem in America until recently has been a lack of good platforms and direction and an unwillingness to bite the bullet and accept the cost of designing and engineering an attractive vehicle. Also, trucks were seen as the cash cow and cars were sort of left for dead. This wasn’t a decision made by designers. Now that trucks are falling off cars are getting the love they deserve and I hope it continues.

Yes Ford has looked to Europe for vehicles before but the choice of car, and execution of its campaign here in the states has always been mis-managed. I think they are finally getting it right this time.

It is true thought that Ford of Europe generally has better handling, and better looking cars than Ford of North America, and I think it is stupid of Ford to continually “water down” their European offerings to suit American tastes. Give us the full strength European Ford Mondeo, Focus, etc. We can handle it! BMW, VW, Mercedes, etc. all sell their full strength German cars in the U.S. with much success. Did it ever occur to Ford management that Americans LIKE the feel of German cars the way they are? Why do they feel compelled to dilute them and soften them up?

I’ll reserve my final call for the real car in person. I’m not too hopeful though because this is still based on the current Taurus/Sable/MKS platform (derived from the past gen Volvo S80). Have you seen any of these current ones on the road. Land Barges – long, tall, wide. These were really meant to replace the Crown Vic, Grand Marquis and Town Car. I don’t care how sporty they redesign this lot… they’re geriatric.

The Euro Ford cars look quite a bit better than the domestic ones. This new Taurus looks pretty slick in the picture, but I’ll wait to pass judgement when I see the car in person next month. The Fusion isn’t half bad, but the new Focus is quite ugly. The interior was the worst out of all the cars I sat in at last year’s NAIAS. The Suzuki small 4 door was even a step above.

Have you driven a Ford lately?
Or how about just buying some stock, the future looks good…