http://wot.motortrend.com/2013-ford-...ng-223589.html

The Ford Taurus received a wide-reaching update for the 2013modelyear, including a revised exterior and interior as well as a new 2.0-liter turbocharged EcoBoost I-4 engine. Now, that engine has an official fuel economy rating of up to 32 mpg on the highway.
While Ford has yet to release the EPA city rating for the 2.0-liter engine in the Taurus, it does say that the it will achieve 26 mpg combined. By our math, that means that the final mileage estimate should come out to 22/32 mpg city/highway. In the Taurus, the 2.0-liter turbo-four is tuned to produce 240 hp and 270 lb-ft of torque. The 2013 Taurus is also offered with a 288-hp 3.5-liter V-6 good for 19/29 mpg with front-wheel drive (the base configuration) or 18/26 with all-wheeldrive; the all-wheel drive-only Taurus SHO with its 365-hp 3.5-liter turbocharged EcoBoost V-6 is rated at 17/25 mpg. All Taurus models use a six-speed automatic transmission.
Compared to the competition, the 2.0-liter Taurus beats all of its closest rivals on both the city and the highway by at least one mpg. The second best in the class is the 2012Chrysler300 and 2012 Dodge Charger, both of which are rated at 19/31 mpg city/highway when equipped with the 3.6-liter V-6 and eight-speed automatic.
The 2013 Ford Taurus with the 2.0-liter EcoBoost I-4 will be available at Ford dealerships later this year; pricing will be announced closer to its on-sale date.

 

Considering how fraking heavy that car is, very impressive numbers.

 

Seems odd to me that Ford have the Taurus AND the new Fusion.....the latter of which is much better looking to me.

Surely the Fusion will steal sales of the Taurus? Are they not very similar in terms of size/engine availability?

Back in the 70s/80s/early 90s in the UK, we had the Cortina and Granada.......similar cars in looks, but the Granada was slightly bigger and plusher. In the early 90s, when the Mondeo (the replacement for the Cortina/Sierra) was selling well, the Granada was killed off, as the Mondeo was seen to fill both roles.

Are there significant differences between the two??

 

The revamped Ford Taurus was actually taken offline in the 90's I believe, it was due to poor quality materials and bad consumer reviews because of Ford lowballing their parts suppliers and then using those bad quality parts and installing them with bad assembly practices. Upon taking over as Ford Motor Co's CEO, Alan Mulally explicitly ordered that the Taurus be brought back online because it was the ONE model he knew and remembered from its beginning, when the car had been designed and launched back in the 80's. In the beginning many considered the car to be well ahead of its time and many also thought thr car gave the Japanese Imports a run for their money.

A sales rep at a local Ford Dealership told my girlfriend in refard to Ford's Sedan lineup is as follows; the base is the Focus, then Fiesta, Fusion, Taurus, and then you step into Lincoln beyond that. Sure the Fusion will take sales away from the Taurus just as a 3-Series BMW will take away from the 5-Series? :shrug: IMO Mulally has done a bang-up job streamlining Ford's offerings that offer simplicity, value, options, and cross platform designs that compliment one another. You may remember this business model and practice with Toyota. Believe it or not, the current Taurus is actually the old Ford 500 and IMO is a very amicable replacement.

 

The new Taurus is a bigger car than the Fusion. It is considered full-sized going against the likes of the Chrysler 300, Dodge Charger and Chevrolet Impala. The Fusion is mid-sized and competes with the Chevy Malibu and Chrysler 200 as well as the usual imports such as the Toyota Camry, Honda Accord and Nissan Altima.

The Ford Taurus nameplate has never skipped a model year since it was originally introduced. Production of the 2007 model year Taurus ended in October 2006. Intended to be completely discontinued, the Taurus nameplate was transferred to a restyled Ford Five Hundred for the 2008 model year at the insistence of Ford's CEO Alan Mulally who could not understand why Ford would scrap a well known best selling nameplate. There were a few months between the 2007 Taurus and the 2008 Taurus that there was no Taurus production.

The third generation Taurus was removed from export duty due to poor sales in the countries they were sold in.

 

Hey you can read and recite the manual, thanks!!!

 

Thanks guys. I guess the Taurus hides its size well.......from photos it appears to have similar dimensions to the Fusion.

 

No manual... I was around when it happened and I have been paying attention since 1965....

 

What Watchdevil said. The current Taurus is not the old Ford Five-Hundred.

 

Only on the outside. Taurus is incredibly small on the inside for a full size car.

 

So I guess 20/32 is good for a pig of a car (on the outside)?

 

It's not a Toyota Avalon hybrid, but it will get the job done.

 

Still no cruise control fatalities on Ford's books that I know of.

 

Well Ford did had his own shares of scandals too, most recently with the Crown Victoria and fuel tanks and Explorer and tires ...

 

Expedition tires, Firestone = not so much..