20 years ago, the Taurus sedan saved Ford from financial turmoil and went on to become an American icon. Over the last decade, Ford neglected the car in favor of investing in large SUVs, and the Taurus was reduced to an outdated rental car, eventually being discontinued in late October.
But with 20 years of brand awareness behind the name, reviving the nameplate is not out of the question, according to BusinessWeek. “I havent had time to do the deep dive on why we stopped investing in Taurus, but I’d like to,” said Ford CEO Alan Mulally. “The Ford Five Hundred should have been the new Taurus.”
Ford’s new marketing chief Barry Engle expressed a similar sentiment. Asked why Ford doesn’t rename the Fusion or the Five Hundred “Taurus,” Engle said, “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.”
