TAURUS SHO IS A PIG IN EDMUNDS TESTING

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Truth With Speedzzter previously opined that Ford Motor Company hadn't learned the correct lessons from the Mercury Marauder debacle.

And a recent Edmunds comparison test bears that out.

The EcoBoost Taurus is an expensive, fat pig that labored to card a weak 14.2-second quarter-mile timeslip. Notwithstanding all-wheel drive and a brace of liliputian turbos, the SHO failed to break the 100 m.p.h. barrier in the quarter mile. That makes the SHO "easy pickin's" for a long list of cheaper sport sedans.

The 2010 Ford Taurus has undoubtedly picked up right where the last 1999 Ford Taurus SHO left off. The problem is, this is not the year 2000. . . . In the end, the 2010 Ford Taurus SHO feels like an excellent all-new Taurus with a muscular engine, period. It's not quite up to the sport sedan badge. [T]he 2009 Infiniti G37 (and the crowd in which it is typically found) has nothing to worry about from the Taurus SHO. That is, unless someone starts changing the G37's list of standard equipment to include two NFL players.

Brakes are apparently an area where Mulally's boys seem have a problem. Edmunds panned the SHO's stoppers. Similarly, Car and Driver (which is no friend to the Glass House Gang, notwithstanding the underdog victory it declared for the underpowered 2010 Mustang GT in last months issue) dogged the brakes of the regular non-SHO 2010 Taurus.

The 2010 Taurus and Taurus SHO are shaping up to be less than expected. Ford's penny-pinching, false economy, and poor benchmarking may have doomed them to also-ran status.

It's an inauspicious start for the EcoBoost era.