Report: Ford set to put Taurus name on Five Hundred sedan
 

http://www.autonews.com/apps/pbcs.dl...2/1003&refsect=

Automotive News / February 6, 2007 - 7:00 am


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NEW YORK (Reuters) -- Ford Motor Co. is planning to announce that its Five Hundred sedan will be renamed the Taurus, Dow Jones Newswires reported.

The news wire said Ford executives would announce the plan on Wednesday, Feb. 7, at the Chicago auto show.

No Ford spokesman was immediately available to comment.

The Taurus nameplate is a Ford icon. It first appeared in December 1985 as a 1986 model and fueled a sales revival at the automaker. The Taurus reigned as the top-selling car in the United States from 1992 through 1996, but gave up that title to the Toyota Camry. Sales continued to fall in following years. In 2006, Ford built the Taurus solely for use in fleets. Production was ended in October.

I'm kind of indifferent to this idea

Although the Taurus name was tarnished with the fleet sales, it has much more of a recognition than the 500 nameplate, which probably has no real equity in the market at all.

That's nuts. I gotta say i wasn't expecting that to happen so quickly. I think the name will catch more attention than the 500. But I always thought the 500 was pretty classy, and Taurus doesn't really have that feeling. Oh well, i hope it helps!

I was expecting Taurus, but not as 500. I expected completely different model.

So they are going to take the taurus name that already had bad sales and put it on the 500 which also has bad sales...

Maybe Ford should just name every car in their lineup the same thing so that they will have the best selling model in the world.

What do you mean Taurus had bad sales?

In 2006 Taurus outsold most of Ford cars except Focus (174,803 to 177,006).

i don't wanna sound clichéd, but how many of those sales were fleet sales? It is surprising to see such high sales numbers for the taurus, but when you think of it, you just don't see many privately owned tauruses driving around.

Or maybe i just stopped noticing them?

Well, for the past 2 years (I think) most of sales were fleet. But if Ford actually updated Taurus it might be different story.

My local dealer sells brand new Tauruses for under $10,000.

I agree!

Here's part of your answer (this is from the Detroit News):

I own a 2002 Taurus and I see nearly as many Taurus's on the road as I do Camry's or Accords. Any they are not all fleet cars.

Newer are (2005 and 2006 models).

http://ca.news.yahoo.com/s/capress/0...taurus_revived

Another link confirming the news

I am starting to think its a good idea, the 500 name never really caught on, and this will put some kind of buzz into the new car, hopefully positive.

So what if they are sold mostly to fleets. Would you rather have 150,000 Camry's sold to the fleets? As long as Ford is moving cars, whether it be to dealers or rental fleets, they are selling cars.

I think it should be "Taurus 500" , kind of like the Galaxie 500 and Fairlane 500 of old. "Taurus" for name recognition, "500" to signify it's better than the old Taurus.

http://www.freep.com/apps/pbcs.dll/a...014/BUSINESS01

Its as if I wrote this article

Makes sense, if you're going to sell a boring car you might as well sell a boring car people have heard of.

Looks like Sable will return too.

http://www.leftlanenews.com/2007/02/...ate-to-return/

Hey, there's a market out there for boring cars. Just look at how many Camrys are sold each year.