Model: Taurus SHO
First order of business -- this is a very large car. With a trunk size of 20.1 cubic feet, Ford claims you can fit 8 golf bags back there. Because, well, we all have 8 sets of golf clubs. Regardless of trunk size, sitting in the driver's seat makes you feel as if you're in a tank. With the high rear end and doors, I certainly felt the urge to just ram the Taurus into something to see how the multitude of air bags would protect me. The Taurus also did not feel as nimble as I was expecting, which makes sense considering the car weighs about 4,400 lbs!
Despite weighing more than 17 baby elephants, The Taurus SHO never felt sluggish, due in part to the AWD helping out in the corners and the twin-turbocharged V6 Ecoboost delivering 365 horses in the straights. One extremely noteworthy point is that there is absolutely no turbo lag whatsoever. Ford says that it's the direct injection that eliminates lag, yet having two turbos instead of one huge turbo definitely has an effect. As a result, while driving the Taurus I had the feeling that there was always more power in the reserve, just waiting to be unleashed. Unfortunately the nice man proctoring the test drive didn't seem like the kind of person who would think it funny if I were to open up the throttle just to pass a truck. Instead, he was the kind of person who pointed out the blind spot monitoring system, which consists of an amber light on the side-view mirrors which will illuminate when the system detects a vehicle in your blind spot. A very handy feature for those of us who have no mobility in their necks -- like my mother.
I had the pleasure of driving a fully spec'd model, and the interior felt very nice. It wasn't gaudy or fake looking, it just felt very high quality. Nothing had that tinny plastic feel like you find in a Kia. The leather-wrapped steering wheel was comfortable and felt at home in my hands, and the presence of steering wheel mounted buttons put all the functions of SYNC literally at my fingertips. I didn't have a chance to try it out during the test drive, but apparently it's brilliant. Seamless bluetooth phone syncing and the ability to insert virtually any usb audio device (including a flash drive) and have voice-activated access to the entire library sounds pretty cool to me.
Overall, the 2010 Taurus SHO is a big improvement over the Tauri of the mid 00's, and seems like a good choice for something to take the kids to school while not losing the the possibility of "spirited driving" on the way home. Or to the golf course, with your 8 golf bags.
Verdict: Fast!
