Will the Ford Taurus return?
Just when it seemed that we would never see the Taurus again, new Ford Motor Co. CEO Alan Mulally says that he was a big fan of the Taurus and even rented one on a recent business trip to check it out. His feelings date back 20 years to a research study he was doing on Ford's production system for Boeing. He has also publicly stated that the Five Hundred "should have been the next Taurus."
Over the 20-year run of the Taurus, Ford invested literally hundreds of millions of dollars building brand equity in the name, then just walked away. It's nothing new with automakers; look at what GM did with the GTO, Camaro and Firebird. The GTO has come and gone and the Camaro comeback is well underway as a completely new car; can the Firebird be far behind?
Mulally took a whimsical shot at the name game this week when he said he was still looking to drive his Lincoln Zephyr. Not to be outdone by the new guy, Ford's sales analyst chief George Pipas made a Freudian slip by referring to the Zephyr in this week's sales call.
We say go ahead and bring back the Taurus name, but not on the Five-Hundred. Hopefully there will be a new, rear-wheel drive large sedan in the product pipeline soon that will need a name, so save it for that. Besides, the name "Taurus" evokes images of charging bulls and, if you think about it, wasn't appropriate for a plebian front-wheel drive sedan.
[Source: Businessweek]
- AWD Magnum test Now that the all-wheel drive Magnums and 300s are hitting the streets and winter weather is coming, I thought it would be prudent to give a link to the first AWD test I've seen. The DCX system gives a ...
- More hybrids = less batteries USA Today is reporting that automakers like Ford might find it hard in the next few years to find the expensive battery packs required to fuel hybrid cars like the new Escape. The expensive power pack ...
- Autoguy discusses Peak Oil and how it could impact our precious babies And by precious babies I mean our cars. We try and stay away from being political at Autoblog but there's no arguing that fossil fuels of any kind run out and some say oil could start a decline soon, ...
- Lavish new ways to sell cars Ed Garsten over at the Detroit News takes a deeper look into the trend of alternative sales pitches by manufacturers. A few weeks back we posted a story about the Black Eyed Peas playing a concert to ...
- Is the USA ready for China's invasion? Since yesterday was when automakers reported October monthly sales, all that's in the news today is how the Asian manufacturers gained share and the Domestics lost share. It's inevitable. When there a ...
- GM plus SEMA equals specialty concepts GM is stocking their booths full of specialty concepts for this years SEMA show in Las Vegas. Some of the show stoppers in 2004 include the Cobalt 272 shown in the picture, Colorado SS complete w ...
- GM, Ford cut inventory, hopefully incentives The US consumer seems immune to the current pile of incentives that automakers have doled out on their last of the 04's, and dealers are pushing back from the money-losing race. GM anno ...
- Anaheim show gets some exposure Every year I'm amazed at how many of the country's auto shows are getting to debut new models. Before only Detroit premiered the biggest and baddest. Then it Chicago started to debut more and more car ...
- Hands free not safer Cell phone addicts, automakers and lawmakers are scratching their heads. For the past few years they've all been advocating the use of hands free cell phones to stem the tide of 2,600 annual deaths li ...
- St. Louis man builds engine that runs on vapor After reading this story my mind was blown. I'm not a mechanic, but Bill Cain is. He's been rebuilding cars since he was a teenager. Recently he built an engine for a 1970 Plymouth Fury that recycled ...
0 Responses to » Will the Ford Taurus return?
Leave your response!