Build a Taurus Wagon, just as Audi and Volvo did to compliment the sedans and make it 2wd and Awd. The Freestyle was built to compete w.the xc70, only it came to market too late and was a very ugly/poor design as well as badly marketed.

if not a wagon, then go the crossover route like infinity EX/FX series or do all the above.

Each will sell and sell well IF built well, looks well, is functional and marketed well.

Look what happened when the focus wagon and hatchback got pulled and then Mazda came out with the 3wagon…they own the market now.

Just put whoever designed the Taurus in charge of your design team and let it run

And,I know the difference between “your” and “you’re.”

When I was a kid GM had almost 50% of the market today it hovers precariously just above 20% of the market and India and China are not even here yet whoa. Look Out! Don’t worry all of you high school sophmoric punks that think GM is so great won’t think its so when its slips below 10% market share and then eventually goes out of business altogether!

GM’s Lutz is a Putz. He believes in the old school along with no pollution to our environment what an Idiot.

Secondly, I am not backing off the bashing part that GM thinks it has a right to do. GM bashes its the competition consistently with a undeserved snobbery that is unjustified. Like EF Hutton they need to EARN IT first!
In Luxury Automotive words their are only two cars that deserve that right and its either a Lexus or Mercedes- Benz Automobile Not a lowly Cadillac.

Sure if you want me to mention the new CTS from Cadillac so-called car of the year(many of those have been recalled later on) it was ugly-as-sin for years car until it aquired a more Taurusik type shape- that flows front to back- except it still has one flaw it has a butt ugly front end. No question about it. It has Better Haunches ok.

Get Real I Love Honda and Toyota so go blow it out your ass why don’t ya. Deanster I don’t know where you get off coming into this post, but your obviously another weirdo. So stick it in your left ear baby!

04focus: “they really need to just make a conventional Taurus station wagon.” Yep.

richt: I bet Mark Fields can spell “shitter.”

zoomzoomr: There would be a risk of a car-based becoming redundant, but if its big enough…

El Aleman: yes,” Taurus X” is a retarded name

johnnycanuck: Yeah, where IS the new SHO?

Heart64: Lot of “reviosionist history” nuts want to forget how good the Taurus was. Problem was, CamCord kept getting fresher,and the Taurus — while the better car — just kept getting “tweaks.”
Now, the word “amount” doesn’t apply to things you can count. AMOUNT of sugar, NUMBER of idiots.

“I’m on my third GM vehicles, largely because the first two went a combined 310,000 miles. Wrecked one, traded in the second.
“I think Buick should have gotten the ax as well.”
Well, Buick Can get the axe now, but i don’t see how that would make sense.

I think the edge costs less than the Lambdas.

GM’s $38.7 billion loss was accounting CYA.
“They need to stop bashing others and come out with Great product …” WAKE UP!

I like to play “Master of Puppets” on an explorer, but I like to play the solos on a Flying V. The classical “Bridge” part is a good time to make the switch,but after the solos, it goes right back into the main riff.
What to do?
I have been just finishing the tune with the Flying V.

While Dr. Evil’s Honda and Toyota take over the world.

Where is Austin Powers ??????

But what I’ve come to learn as many have from witnessing the most recent Autoshows in Detroit/New York/LAX/Chicago is what Mulally CEO of Ford has in store that should put GM in their place ok. So hold that thought and apply it to GM. Their the ones that just got off the LARGEST LOSS of ANY AUTOMAKER in HISTORY AT ALMOST 40 BILLION DOLLARS. So smoke on that one for awhile why don’t ya. It ain’t gettin a whole lot better for GM either.

And Get Real – IF Ford has no sales what does that make GM when it took three GM divisions to equal one Ford model in total sales. Were talking about the Ford Edge vs Outlook, Acadia, and Enclave. Could it be that none of these brands are known for making revolutionary vehicles and that Ford is. Hmmmm let me think. Ahh I see No Sales either but far worse than Ford haha. So what’s your point you have none I see.

Fusion and Mustang are selling well too ok. So it looks like their are plenty of folks not listening to you!

What was FoMoCo thinking releasing this bland, unattractive vehicle anyway? It was always back of the pack as far as ‘segment’, and was doomed to stay there. Mediocre doesn’t even begin to decribe this vehicle, good riddance.

Oh yeah…THEY HAVE NO SALES, people don’t want their cars!!!

Reality bites your butt hard doesn’t it.

I think if Automobiles spent as much time investing in the Electric car the way they did the internal combustion engine been around since 1854. So for the last 154 years we’ve spent improving the same principle.

Hey their are a couple of electrical engineers alone in California that have produced the Tesla Roadster (its Electric) but it competes with even the most Exotic Sports cars on the market in the 0-60 time range.

Image what Stephen Hawking would say when it comes to the amount of R&D that one of the automobile companies could put into R&D to make a much more improve Electic Motor, capacitor, and batteries. We don’t know where the performance boundary is capable of going!?

ANd if these engineers can make an Electic do 0-60 in 4.4 second. How much more improved in acceleration could we go!? This is very interesting stuff. And why has’nt the automobile companies envisioned that.

I believe they have been in cahoots with the Oil industry but demand and technology advancements will win out here. I envision ordinary vehicles in the not to distant future totally electric that can do 0-60 faster than the fastest super car we have today.

Imagine a Ford Edge hitting 0-60 like a fighter in 0-60 in .5 seconds!!!! And blowing away a Ferrarri Testarossa! Now hey that would wake you up in the morning. Poor Ferrarri would’nt know what hit him.

VLane I would have almost 100% agreed with you on the Ford Flex as lame and stupid as an upcoming vehicle.
To me I don’t care for it.

However lets look at the bigger picture. Where Ford is going and where Ford is positioning the Flex. Once again, to me the Ford Flex to me its nothing special to look at. however. It does give Ford a product that has a certain Rustic appeal with the indented sides of the woody and cuteness from an american point of view.

The Ford Flex could be equated in not the totally same way (dissimilar) to the boxy yet very versatile, and highly economical, great quality on the Honda Element.
The Flex has to be an exceptional in terms of overall value economically, appeal, and everything internally in order to make it. Plus I will add the major ingredient in a minute.

To me lowest operating cost is what I am after. So MPG or range of an electric could make or break car companies in the not too distant future.

It has that Japanese functional appeal on a smaller scale. Toyota tried to copy the cuteness of the element and failed. It was completely gross like the RAV4.

What Ford is doing is the Key to bringing home not only Ford people but everyone else.
They had 5 of the Top selling name plates in America from the mid-1990′s right to the year 2001. Then had gone to sleep in the design department then wasted all that hard earned cash on crap like scooping up redundant car businesses like Jag/LandRover/AstonMartin/Volvo, and Mazada. Their doing away with that ok.

Did’nt belong do any of those things-total waste of time and assets and Ford got behind because the Ford kids were the ones behind it-Duh! Homer Simpson how dumb can you be, but GM started following suit by scooping up car companies as well like: SAAB, AM General’s Hummer,etc so GM is not doing everything right- more on that later.
Vlane one last point. The Focus platform was the best selling compact in the world as well. Its a great platform nothing for Ford to be ashame about -except redesigning it when their suppose to!!! Platform sharing is kind of a necessary evil today to cut cost.

Now hateful as for the Jellybean thing-like Ronald Reagan- that was propaganda that GM folks said whenever they saw a Taurus on the road since its inception- I heard it a million times. All the while GM got its butt handed to them in the market place.

I call GM lowly because they have a mass amount of idiots who like to brag endlessly about their GM brand name as better. I have one answer for them. No your not!! haha. and to that end I don’t care for General Maird. Hey my father had plenty of GM vehicles while I grew up and every single one of those GM vehicles was a junk pile on wheels. They did’nt last. So I can talk.
Buick, Chevy, Oldsmobile,and Pontiac do those names ring a bell those are the one he had. Oh and did I mention Oldsmobile is out of business! I think Buick should have gotten the ax as well if not more so.

and to Sharpie- Mazada is doing alot of things right with product design-their not as good at value as Toyota or Honda but yes Mazada does alot of things right. A page Ford could learn from.

Get Real one last thing. I mentioned the major ingredient. And that is Ford’s product line must be right with the best product line out their to win.

Big things from Ford by 2010.
1.) redesign of F-150 new Hurricane-Boss V8 motor over 425 HP -then redesign in 2012
2.) Redesign of Verve/Fiesta/Focus for best in class SubCompact car 2009
3.) Redesign of Super Taurus 2010
4.) Redesign of Ford Explorer 2009/2010
5.) Redesigned of Ranger pickup?

Plus redesigns for Edge – very well selling I must say it bested GM’s 3 lambda platform models.

With those 5 reasons with get designs plus the best Mileage or better yet no mileage- totally electric will set Ford’s sales back to the top. Flex could get those with the extra traffic flow and great quality, technology, and functionality.

And one more parting blow to Mr. Hateful. I admit GM’s product offerings are vastly improved. As the lambada platforms are testimony to that fact. However, if GM was doing so well then why did they just post GM Loses Big. 12 Feb 2008 11:35 am. GM has posted the largest loss in automaker history, $38.7 billion for 2007. Now that tells you something!

I could one day go from hating GM and for a number of good reasons to liking them. But they need to stop bashing others and come out with Great product instead of lambasting others unjustifiably. I don’t care for their pugnacious attitude.

Ford wake up and start kicking ass again.

The nice part of it all. Is that the Japanese and German will never stop coming out with Great products. And now soon the Ante will go up and the Bar of product Greatness in products will go up even further with the rest of Asia and China and India coming to American shore soon! Look out American dunder heads meaning Ford or GM. I like Chrysler lets see if they think Mediocrity is acceptable too!

Introduced on TV by a short bald man.

Plastastic interior….all hard by the way.

Nobody buys our vehicle at a time when the Crossover is all the rage.

FORD is Doomed…Doomed…Doomed

NOOO!!! Don’t drag Mazda down with you. Let it stand on its feet again!

And who says they’re killing it? More like wasting millions more dollars to re-bastardize it A THIRD TIME with another ugly face and another lame name: Ford Flex. How dumb is that?

Also, has anyoned notice how Ford stole Volvo’s platform to create a bunch of good stuff (like the Freestyle), while in return using the Focus platform to spread crap all throughout Sweden?

lol, damn right!

I remember my college Professor telling our class constantly which is the logically the best product in the market place Ford Taurus or Honda Accord. As the BEST in CLASS product. And he was right.

But Ford went to sleep and retired the guy that gave them their best selling car since the Model T!

Now you even have lowly GM shaping every one of their cars like that! Yeah and you heard me right GM folk your company likes putting out their say oh its another Jelly bean shaped car. Yeah well now your company is doing it.

We’ll in 2010 we’ll see if the new Super Ford Taurus is indeed Super. I expect that it will be “Super” with Mulally’s leadership at Ford Motor. And along with the rest of the new products then Ford can reign supreme again. However its going to be much more challenging today than back in 1985 when they introduced the Taurus.
We’ll soon have China and India offering products here in the US.

It does nothing exceptional. Now if your an oveweight person and need the extra leg and hip room then this vehicle may be right for you. As it provides extra and step in height and room so you may love it.

But with in the know buyers its way too large for starters especially with high Gas prices, and Ugly looks are huge turn offs. And yes mediocre gas mileage is bad news too.
Yes I agree with the early post. Mark Fields does’nt give a hoot about Ford and its employees. And if Ford goes down the tube tommorrow he could care less other than missing his huge salary.

All he cares about is his multimillion dollar contract salary with Ford. If you listen to him talk he’s a BS’er. Mulally take it from whoever. After Fields has fattened up on his salary at Ford replace him with Bill Ford’s consent with a trusted friend at your respected company at Toyota. Those Toyota guys know how to work over there, and if not another person here in the US like Jack Telnack then that is what Ford needs most. No more Blue Bloods, Union Guys who are lazy-er-than-stink, and no more upper crust ivy leage dingle berry that don’t do any work at Ford. Whpeither come out with No product or bad product!

A crossover is nothing more than a trendy fake SUV based on a car or minivan platform. The BMW X5 is about as much of an SUV as a Honda Civic is. Ford doesn’t need this mommywagon anyhow.

You want a home depot hauler, buy a used Explorer. Cheaper, more room.

So much for your “too expensive to retool our plants to bring the new Focus over” argument while you wasted money on junk market research on more CUV and SUV! Disgusting!!!

By the way, Ford. Remember the Taurus SHO? Either generation? Build a new one of those and we’ll talk.

Frankly I would want FORD to spend as much time on cars as they are on Trucks, SUVs and CUVs

I’m not so sure the Edge is going anywhere. A few articles ago, LLN reported that the Edge sold almost as many units as all the Lambdas from GM (Outlook, Acadia, etc) combined. If I recall, close to 130,000 units. That, the pickups, and the Mustang are the only models keeping them from folding altogether.

If the Explorer America is any indication The EDGE could be the next one to go. The Explorer is a stronger name and the vehicle will be larger with a more robust set of capabilities.

The Flex is a different story and I have no idea what is up with that. It should serve LINCOLN well as the MKT.

As ever, FORD only makes news when something goes wrong. Don’t these guys know good news sells more vehicles than bad news.

technically, an Audi Q7, BMW X5, Mercedes ML, Porsche Cayenne and VW Touareg are Crossovers, too, based more on cars than trucks anyway.

Why doesn’t anybody else get the proportions as nice? Good design needn’t cost a lot..

It’s probably the small wheels and the front-wheel drive base pulling the cab closer to the front and shortening the bonnet.. But still..