http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bLFshxbnLiI

 

freakin sweat I love that car if the show only had a manual option!

 

I will never own another Black car, but that Black SHO is HAWTTTT!!! But $37-45K for a freaking Taurus is Insane!

 

The problem is it isn't your grandmothers Taurus anymore. It has the name, but the car is just in a whole other price point now. It's a full size luxury car now. I've seen the SHO in person in Tuxedo Black and it is gorgeous. I sat in it and it's like no Taurus I've ever seen.

 

I would rather have a M3 for that price.

 

I'm assuming you are referring here to a used M3, because a new M3 easily eclipses that price range.

 

Nice! I still think they should have done a Fusion SHO instead, to be more true to the original with size and all.

 

Nice review!

 

A new 4-door M3 will run you between $60K & $70K loaded with all the bells and whistles and its still a much smaller car!

 

a few grand more for something that will have resale.

The sho I priced out was going to be almost 50k

 

That's where the bad comparisons come from.

The Taurus is HUGE. Sure, if you don't want/need a FULL size car, you could pick up a G37 or something for a little less (with fewer features, btw).

However, look at what a FULL size, AWD, ~365hp, luxury sedan costs... it's a lot more than a comparably-equipped SHO.

The SHO is a good deal if it matches what you want. Obviously, if you only want/need 2 seats, a Corvette/GT500 is going to offer better bang-for-the-buck, but that's not apples-to-apples.

 

my sadly might trade in his mustang for a new SHO. one much like the one in that review.

 

A very nice, capable and competent car, but just doesn't have the panache or spirit of the original version. I'll wait for a Fusion SHO with the same drivetrain but a whole lot less weight and bulk and a whole lot more spunk.

 

We need to start a petition to Mulaly for a Fusion SHO.

 

But that begs the question, if you didn't need the interior room a full size car brings to the table why even bother looking at the SHO in the first place? If I'm looking for a sport sedan and the relatively small interior of the M3 will do the trick nothing the size of the SHO is going to even be on my radar.

 

I'm still not sold on whether there is a market for a $40k+ Ford Taurus.....even though it's a beautiful car. I hope I'm wrong.

 

Not a loaded question at all, but do you think you would you feel the same way if the car was called Ford ????? instead of Taurus?

 

Producing an upscale car under a downscale, well, midscale, moniker has often been a problem for manufacturers selling to often myopic customers. Subaru had that problem with the SVX as did VW with the excellent Pheaton (an $80K VW?!?!, even if it was pretty much the equal of an $80K Audi). Honda, Toyota and Nissan created whole new badges to dodge that shallow perception issue.

So is the new Taurus SHO a viable $40K car? Objectively, yes, its a very good car, but trying to get hidebound American consumers to accept that may be a touch difficult, at least initially.

As whether to fork out another $10-15K for and M3 sedan, well, if I had that kind of scratch and weren't 6'10" with 5 kids (actually 5'9" with no spawn), in a heartbeat. Americans, too, tend to buy there cars by the pound and foot and thus, get all befuddled paying more for a physically smaller ride. While an M3 might not impress the truck scale or tape measure like a Taurus, dynamically, it is in a whole other realm and I think its tidier dimensions represent a significant asset for a performance car.

Now, were Ford to package the TT3.5 into the tidier Fusion box, tweak it up to 400hp and tune the chassis a bit more tautly, well, they very well might have a viable M3 or (R)S4 competitor at a working-man's price.

 

You might be onto something there. I own a 2004 Taurus SEL which, according to KBB and Carmax, is worth next to nothing even though it's in great shape with 50k miles.

 

I sat in new SHO few days ago and it was pretty small for a full-size.

Somehow I felt more comfortable at the driver's seat of my Fusion than Taurus.