I suppose it’s a smart marketing move but it’s too bad Ford has to resort to name changes just to move more cars. Is the Taurus name still that strong? Don’t people think of the Taurus as a boring rental fleet car these days? I guess it’s quick and easy step before actually changing the car so it looks good.

I guess when it was the Ford 500, they felt it was 200 better than Chrysler 300C.

I’m glad about this decision. Yes, the Taurus was a POS car, but it did have 20 years of history in the nameplate. It was one of those cars that people bought time and time again. By bringing the name back, Ford will be able to reconnect with customers who are attached to that nameplate.

I was never a fan of the Taurus, but I know it did have its share of loyal fans. I have meet a lot of people that especially loved the SHO’s. I’m not sure how this will work out, I know the name Taurus better than I do 500, yet again I think of Taurus as a rental car/Taxi cab.

Personally, I would have named it Taurus from the start, but not after the fact.
Really the Taurus was not a POS car. It was a good seller for many years and reasonably dependable. It wasnt a performance car by any means but an excellent point A to point B car and a financial success. Any car company would love to have the same success.

I really dislike the alpha-numeric names, so bringing back an actual name is good to hear.

“stranger things have happened […] I don’t know why we invest hundreds of millions of dollars in a name over 20 years and then walk away from it.” What a moron. Ill tell you why. Cause the Taurus had a bad stigma attached to it, and the only way to get away from that is to bring out a new model w/ a new nameplate. And thats what they did. Moving it back to the Taurus is a foolish move at best. BAD play.

good idea.

my girlfriend has a taurus. It’s really not as bad of a car as it’s made out to be. It’s an extremely comfortable car to sit in. She got it dirt cheap, with low miles, so she didn’t make out to bad with it all.

Well, at least this is a sign that when Mulally wants something, it gets DONE. For better or worse.

After a three month retirement, the Taurus name is back! I don’t understand why they got rid of it in the first place, its a lot better than 500.

Is this a sign of Ford getting rid of their stupid way of naming everything with a name starting with a “F”? I hope so. Maybe the Freestar will be changed back to Windstar, making the Freestar/Freestyle thing less confusing.

My dad used to own a Taurus, and it wasn’t too bad, or at least not as bad as the Windstar he now has.

“Taurus” sound a lot better than “Fivehundred” IMHO.

I’ve never seen a car company change car names mid-model like FoMoCo has lately. Zephyr/MKZ comes to mind also. I guess they are trying whatever they can to increase sales. I never liked the Five Hundred name (too close to 300, et al), but I don’t know if Taurus is the right name either. I don’t think the Five Hundred is a bad car, I just hope Ford doesn’t let it get ho-hum like the previous generation.

While Taurus was a strong name and had a strong brand recognition going, it also symbolizes an older model from which Ford has moved on. I think changing the name of the Five Hundred is a mistake and will only confuse customers.

So does that mean that the Montego will become the Sable?

I drive a Sable, and they’re not bad cars by any means.

Well, in some way the design of the 500 (from the side anyway) resembles the first generation Taurus. Why did FoMoCo named it 500 is anyones guess. As for the Freestyle, Fusion, and Focus, maybe resurrect some old names - Fairmont or Country Squire for the Freestyle, Falcon or Tempo for the Fusion, Escort for the Focus. An idea for FoMoCo - how about an upscale version and use the name “Taurus 500″. Just a suggestion.

Ford logic isn’t quite what it used to be, huh?

Boss: “The Fivehundred isn’t selling. Why?”
Engineer: “Because it’s a pretty lame car?”
Engineer2: “Because of its forgettable styling?”
Marketing: “The name! Let’s call it Taurus instead.”
Boss: “Dang it! I love marketing, just a name change that won’t cost us too much and we have a new model.”

I’m indifferent to the car, but it’s not so out of the ordinary for Ford. Heck, they just renamed the Zephyr to MKZ or whatever after only 1 or 2 years of being available. Personally I prefer cars with names rather than some alphanumeric nonsense. Unless it’s been your company’s historic naming scheme (ie: MB or BMW), alphanumerics names never made sense to me.

Bollocks

no wonder Ford is doing SO bad. I have a Taurus as a company car and my company couldnt have picked a worse car. But I still its better than a PT Cruiser, our other choice.

Sounds like a revolution is happening within the company. There’s some mavericks pushing changes through for the sake of change. This type of thing happens quite a bit when the ship is sinking. Time for the senior management to take ahold of the reins and get them boys under control. The 500 should have been a Taurus all long. Better late than never. Maybe next year will produce more sales.

This is probably the worst move ever. The 500 isn’t selling because to the car, not because of the name. Moving the name to Taurus will only garauntee rental car status faster. It’ll be a bland car attached to a rental car name. If they had actually mantained the Taurus and gave it a big send off when it went out of production it might had been okay, but they didn’t. Instead they neglected it and let it fade out of existence. BAD MOVE!!!!!!!!!

In order to keep Ford’s current naming trend, it would have to name the car “Faurus”. That Sable that someone mentioned?… the new “Fable”.

If they wanted to keep a large sedan, the Five Hundred could stay… but any numbered vehicles could only start with Four or Five. For example, the new Ford Forty-four.

Taurus, Malibu, Impala, GrandPrix, G6, Focus, etc.

All marks of a rental car. At least “500″ hasn’t fallen into that category yet. I’d say keep it.

Grandma and Grandpa are going to be happy.

I doubt renaming the 500 as the Taurus is going to fool anyone. It’s still a 500, and it’s still a boring vehicle. Why mess with the (generally) good Taurus lineage?

Is this that big of a deal?

The Ford Taurus (except the original) was always a piece of junk especially the last two generations. The Ford Five Hundred drives terribly. The fusion drives much better. I never liked the Five Hundred name or the Taurus nameplate. Ford must improve the quality of materials and driving dynamics of their cars and especially their SUV and trucks if they want to see improved sales. Ford always tries to rename a car and it never works.

Problems started with letting the Taurus stagnate, then going to rental status. Followed by dropping the name/vehicle. Followed by building a new, BORING, BLAND vehicle and naming it something different (2 strikes … name and styling are failures) maybe hoping it would help a faltering company. Followed by today’s news of the name change.

Correcting the problem has started with today’s news of a name change. Followed by building/styling a new vehicle worthy of acclaim that is desired by more people than all of its competition. “Taurus” deserves to exist, only labelling a vehicle garnering the attention of the world as when it first arrived.

Someone wrote: “While Taurus was a strong name and had a strong brand recognition going, it also symbolizes an older model…” Gee, like Mustang, Impala, Corvette, Caprice, and Camaro? Those names don’t “symbolize older models” — they denote a FRANCHISE. A brand franchise is the best thing you can have going for you in automotive marketing and it’s beyond me why Ford insists on trying to throw theirs away.

The Taurus is still remembered as a revolutionary design that was exciting and accessible to mainstream America and gave good value. The latter-generation cars, noboby remembers except frequent Hertz renters. There is NO equity in the Five Hundred name, nobody knows what the hell it means. Everyone knows what the Taurus means and the Taurus brand story has very little downside.

Good move.

They could just call it the Ford Crap - it’d be about the same.

Lot of haters out today…

Anyway, I just hope this means a general end to FORD’s dumb idea to name all their cars By “F” words for FORD, “M” words for Mercury, and eventually and end to That odd, though strangely not as Lame “M-K” crud for Lincoln. “Mark- whatever” is just fine.

The names were just getting very weak to me.

Besides, Everyone knew the FiveHundred, which sounds like a muscles car, as in Galaxy 500, was really the next generation Taurus anyway. I think the market would have been more forgiving if they has gone with that name…

Again on the Taxi and a Rental car cracks, Detroit cuts better fleet deals than Japan does.

You know, I really hated the 500 but now that it is going to be called a Taurus I want one soooooooo badly!
.
.
.
NOT.

well if meanpants’s logic is any indication it should have just been the “five” because its nowhere near a 300.
Its great theyre going to revert back to the taurus nameplate.. but it should have been on the MONDEO YOU IDIOTS

Taurus? Taurus! Those MORONS! Ford needs to fire SO MANY MORE people - namely, the white collared. That’ll save some extra cash for them & get better ideas flowing to improve their financial situation in the long run because they’ve got morons running the show now. TAURUS!!!???

If it means the return of the Taurus SHO, I’m all for it.

LOL… Faurus! Good one!

I bet with the name change to Five Hundred they lost a lot of the older buyers who knew and (gag/choke) embraced the Taurus.

As for the Ford Taurus SHO, wasn’t that a Yamaha engine? Those cars always sounded great.

HAHAAHA I FEEL BAD FOR THE PERSON WHO BOUGHT THE LAST FORD TAURUS :-)

If the “new” Taurus has a better transmission, it will be a good car. The engine on the old one lasted forever, but the tranny too soon. Be sure to get rid of that “rubber band” CVT tranny everyone is in love with these days, just how long do you think one will last lugging big american cars around? Great tranny for euro-spec coke-can size cars, but not real cars.

I’m all for the change to “Faurus”. They get to keep the “F-name” trend, and get all the tradition of Taurus.

As an added bonus, they can use the marketing slogan…

“You’re either Faurus, or against us!”

Ford is coming across as a weak, tentative company with all of these name changes. Zephyr to MKZ pronounced Em-Kay-Zee) to MKZ pronounced Mark-Z, and then back to MKZ pronounced Em-Kay-Zee, and now this name change. However, this is one name change I fully approve of, the Taurus used to be a huge money bank, but Ford let it fester and turn into a pile of outdated automotive ****, and then they retired this easily recognizable nameplate, pretty smart move bringing it back, but the only downside is the past few Taurus’ or so haven’t really been class leaders and have some negative connotations associated with them.

Oh, and how about along with a semi new exterior and a new name, A NEW INTERIOR, the current 500 or should I say Taurus interior is GARBAGE, it’s parts bin status and it blows. Please fix this. Please.

Good one Thomas!

I dont buy that having the Taurus as a common rental killed the name. The Taurus just became bland and outdated. I rented a Mustang and all it made me do is want it MORE. It was a fun car to drive and had style.

Its all about designing great exciting reliable cars. The name is secondary. I dont think changing the name of the 500 (possibly the blandest, least exciting car on the road) will improve sales. Once the Pontiac G8 hits market, things will get even harder for the Taurus.

THIS’LL TURN FORD AROUND FOR SURE!!!!!!!!!!…………
please, its not Ford has a following of Taurus owners to make the 500 sell more

A turd by any other name is still a turd

-tob

Nahh.. they should keep all the M-names at Mercury, since that is pretty much all they have going for them — though they need to drop the “Grand” from Marquis unless they rename the Montego Marquis. As far as Ford, not all of their cars have had F names (Mustang, Thunderbird, GT, Crown Vic) and it is wise to drop that tradition. Honestly, we should have expected something like this, particularly after the Lincoln Zephyr fiasco.

Maybe they will scrap the Focus name before the 2008 model hits too.. especially since the redesign looks like a modern-day Escort!

Dont get me started on the Focus. They had a good thing and ruined it. They had a cutting edge design and watered it down into a mini 500(taurus). Horrible.

I think its funny that GM announced that they’re bringing a great V8 powered exciting sedan to the US from Australia, and what does ford have to counter that? The name change of the blandest car ever, to a name of another boring car that was discontinued. Really bold there Ford. Keep it up.

I don’t know what to say about this one. It’s a damn waste, that’s for sure. Wasting millions of dollars promoting the 500 only to tack an older nameplate onto the same vehicle a few years later…not a very wise decision, IMO.

Change the name.
Drop the balls.
Throw in the 5.0L 400HP V8.
Call is SHO.

i remember my buddies 87 taurus… um, lemon! everything apon everything else broke down on that car, i find it funny how people say they were good value… it wasnt just his car, it was everyone i ever knew who owned one, they were made poorly, (made to american standards, which suck). Always breaking down… etc etc but past is past? wrong, even the newer tauruses were crap, i sat in one of the early 2000’s not expecting much more than crap and wasnt supprised, i was shocked at how much worse i thot it was even tho i gave it a low bar to lift its little foot over… it failed meh.

Maybe Ford will file chapter 11, do us all a favor so we can have a conversation a few years from now and say “hey remember that american auto maker ford? yeah we had a few laughs and were all stressed out, but atleast we’re less stressed out now, no more aurgueing”

Ah, it makes sense to change it to Taurus. I felt they wasted the 500 name on this car. The term 500 was a trim-line if I’m not totally mistaken. There were Galaxy 500, Fairlane 500, ect. But there was never a car called just 500 that I know of. If Ford wants to compete with the new slew of RWD V8 sedans appearing in our market, they need to build a muscular RWD V8 Sedan of thier own, and just call it Galaxy 500. That “Interceptor” concept shown a few weeks back would easily carry the Galaxy 500 name. They just need to give it some classic character in the nose, instead of the sleek but bland “super chief” design theme it has.

This current car will be a fine Taurus. It’a a car for people who don’t like cars. Kinda how I always veiwed Taurus’.

Thats stupid to name a car after the one that is not being made anymore!!

Why deviate from the Zodiac theme? Ford should start naming their vehicles from the entire Zodiac.

The Ford Cancer. Ford Aries (oops… taken by Dodge!). Ford Capricorn. Ford Sagittarius.

Sounds like big sellers to me!

Why is Ford wasting so much money renaming vehicles?? Like the Lincon Zephyr - oh no, wait, it’s the MKZ, oh, no, we like Zephyr better, but eventually, we want it to be the MKZ. I’m not sure this fits the Bold Moves/Way Forward initiative. It actually fits Saturn’s campaign, “Like always. Like never before.”

The only connotation I have to this car is naming it the “poor-us”

this is a stupid move but who really cares the car is even more hideous now than it was when it first came out as a 500. it looks like a ‘90 ford escort on roids. wtf this sh*t is sick its about to make me gag. and was it really necessary to follow in the other dumb$%#* american automakers footsteps and add portholes to everything. ford deserves to die a horrible death and it should take that loser fords son to hell for dragging it down for so many years. the asians hate them or love em build better cars with value,style (if its nissan product), quality, performance (again if its nissan, sometimes honda,sometimes mitsu), etc. when are ford and gm gonna learn. ford just got to two minutes away from doomsday on its apocalyptic clock.