Blue Book Be Lovin’ Them Some Taurus
For the second consecutive year, Ford has captured Kelley Blue Book’s kbb.com “Best Redesigned Vehicle” award, this time for the hot-selling Taurus sedan. Last year, the honor went to the 2009 Ford F-150.
In addition to its expressive, upscale design and engaging driving dynamics, the 2010 Ford Taurus offers an unprecedented array of technologies typically reserved for luxury cars at a price that is affordable. Its impressive standard and available technologies add convenience, connectivity, safety and value for customers. These include Adaptive Cruise Control, Collision Warning with Brake Support, Blind Spot Information System (BLIS®) with Cross Traffic Alert, MyKey™ parental programmability, Ford SYNC® and Voice-Activated Navigation with SIRIUS Travel Link™.
Today’s recognition from Kelley Blue Book’s kbb.com is the latest in a string of accolades for the 2010 Ford Taurus. Earlier this month at the Los Angeles Auto Show, the Taurus was named International Car of the Year, and it received kbb.com “2010 Best Resale Value Award” in the full-size car category. And in January, the 2010 Taurus will serve as the official car of the 2010 International CES (Consumer Electronics Show®) in Las Vegas.
For more information about the 2010 Best Redesigned Vehicle from Kelley Blue Book’s kbb.com, please visit www.kbb.com/best2010redesign.
Quotes
“This is not your father’s Taurus. For us it’s a massive departure. It reinvigorates a brand that everybody wants to be proud of, applaud, and be excited about. It’s the whole package – great value, great build quality and great technology. We at Kelley Blue Book couldn’t help but embrace the new Taurus.”
– James Bell, Executive Market Analyst for Kelley Blue Book’s kbb.com
“What’s amazing about the Taurus is that it just bristles with technology at such a responsible and very acceptable price point. I think that’s what makes it somewhat revolutionary.”
– James Bell, Executive Market Analyst for Kelley Blue Book’s kbb.com
“Just like the 1986 original, the new Taurus is redefining the full-size sedan segment. It is creating a halo effect in our showroom and attracting younger, more diverse customers to the Ford brand.”
– Pei-Wen Hsu, Taurus Marketing Manager
Who Said Domestic Can’t Have International Appeal?
That paragon of domestic motoring bliss, the 2010 Ford Taurus, today was named International Car of the Year (ICOTY) at the Los Angeles Auto Show.
The ICOTY award honors new-year model vehicles that foster an emotional connection with consumers. The all-new Ford Taurus was voted the winner of the 14th annual award by a panel of 19 automotive media from around the U.S. representing top newspapers, magazines and Web sites.
With its athletic, upscale design, the 2010 Ford Taurus combines class-leading technologies with confident, engaging driving dynamics. It features an impressive set of standard and available technologies that add convenience, connectivity, safety and value for customers, such as Blind Spot Information System (BLIS®) with Cross Traffic Alert, MyKey™ parental programmability, Ford SYNC® and Voice-Activated Navigation with SIRIUS Travel Link™.
Quotes
“This award is not centered on power and performance. It’s about how a car reflects our personalities, lifestyles and self-image and how well the automaker achieves that goal through the design and marketing of the vehicle.”
– Courtney Caldwell, ICOTY’s Creator and Executive Producer.
“Taurus is not just a car you need to get from point A to point B, it is a car you want to arrive in in style. The new Taurus gives you a little blast of attitude and turns heads around every corner.”
– Pei-Wen Hsu, Taurus Marketing Manager
Blue on Blue… Without the Heartache
The 2010 Ford Taurus and the 2010 Ford F-Series Super Duty have earned Kelley Blue Book’s kbb.com Best Resale Value Awards for the full-size car and full-size pickup categories respectively. The awards, announced Dec. 1 at the L.A. Auto Show, honor vehicles expected to maintain the greatest proportion of their original list price after five years of ownership and that are designed to help consumers make more informed car-buying decisions.
Editors of Kelley Blue Book’s kbb.com say depreciation can be the largest expense faced in the first five years of driving a vehicle.
Best Resale Value: Full-Size Car Category
The 2010 Ford Taurus offers 10 class-exclusive technologies not available from any other manufacturer, such as Ford SYNC®, Voice-Activated Navigation System with SIRIUS Travel Link™, Easy Fuel® Capless Fuel-Filler System, Blind Spot Information System (BLIS®) with Cross Traffic Alert and MyKey™.
Learn more about the 2010 Taurus.
Best Resale Value: Full-Size Pickup Category
The 2010 Super Duty offers Ford Work Solutions™, a suite of productivity technologies developed for the commercial truck owner that was recently recognized as “Outstanding Feature” by the Texas Auto Writers Association.
Learn more about the 2010 Super Duty.
Quotes
“We think the 2010 Ford Taurus is an excellent redo of a venerable Ford nameplate. It’s the kind of vehicle that we believe will catch on in the marketplace, and therefore, its resale value should also do very well.”
– James Bell, Executive Market Analyst for Kelley Blue Book’s kbb.com
“People today are buying pickup trucks for what they should be used for – which is for work, for getting jobs done and for playing with big toys. We feel that the Super Duty really captures that ‘Get the job done’ spirit and that it will certainly hold its value over time. Ford Work Solutions is something that’s definitely going to provide an advantage over time.”
– James Bell, Executive Market Analyst for Kelley Blue Book’s kbb.com
What Younger Car Buyers Are Purchasing Now
It’s no wonder that the single biggest demographic for energy drinks also goes for Ford’s EcoBoost™ engine technology. EcoBoost is driving younger, more affluent customers to Ford showrooms. And many of these buyers are hot to trade in their competitive-make vehicles to get their hands on one equipped with the fuel-efficient direct-injection turbocharged EcoBoost engine.
SHO-ing off
Living proof is the all-new Ford Taurus SHO, with EcoBoost as standard. The average SHO buyer is 54 years old – 10-plus years younger than the base-model Taurus customer – and second youngest in its segment. The median household income of the SHO buyer is $20,000 more than the base Taurus customer. And as for conquests, nearly 55 percent of buyers are trading in Toyota Avalons, Nissan Altimas and Chevy Monte Carlos, among other competitive products, to drive away in a Taurus SHO. That’s the second-highest conquest rate in the segment.
Moreover, Taurus SHO customers want more and are willing to spend more to get it. Ford is seeing transaction rate improvements as EcoBoost buyers tend to package more options in their purchase, and the vehicles are selling with fewer incentives.
Taurus SHO has the highest average transaction price in the segment, with customers paying $10,000 or more above base-model price to enjoy not only the fuel efficiency and performance of the EcoBoost engine, but other premium package amenities such as all-wheel drive, Ford SYNC®, 19-inch wheels and a reverse sensing system.
EcoBoost spread
Other vehicles that offer EcoBoost, such as the Ford Flex and Lincoln MKS, are exhibiting other demographic phenomena.
Lincoln MKS with EcoBoost – along with Taurus SHO – is helping attract more 35- to 55-year-old males, a demographic the company has been working hard to bring back to the Ford fold. Ford sedans with EcoBoost are improving traffic with this demographic that has eluded Ford in recent years, says Amy Marentic, Ford group marketing manager. This group of shoppers, in fact, represents nearly 35 percent of Lincoln MKS with EcoBoost buyers, which is more than 5 percentage points higher than the MKS equipped with the 3.7-liter engine. For Taurus SHO, it’s above 40 percent, more than double the 35- to 55-year-old males that purchase a base-model Taurus.
Other customers making the jump to Ford vehicles are hitting the Flex with EcoBoost equally hard; three out of four buyers are trading in a competitive product, including the Toyota Highlander, GMC Acadia and Chevy Traverse.
More with EcoBoost
EcoBoost technology incorporates direct injection and turbocharging, allowing for the downsizing of engines, to provide customers with up to a 20 percent improvement in fuel economy and 15 percent reduction in emissions versus larger-displacement engines. With the 3.5-liter EcoBoost V-6, customers can expect V-8 performance but V-6 fuel efficiency.
Sales of Ford’s 3.5-liter EcoBoost-equipped vehicles have already exceeded company projections, with October sales twice as high as September.
Ford will complement the 3.5-liter EcoBoost V-6 engine with the launch of new 1.6-liter and 2.0-liter four-cylinder variants next year, which will be offered on several global Ford products, including midsize and large vehicles.
Quotes
“EcoBoost technology is helping bring in a new customer to Ford dealer showrooms. This customer is younger, more affluent, and more often trades in competitive products.”
– Amy Marentic, Ford Group Marketing Manager
“No one else offers the level of performance and versatility of Flex with EcoBoost. It’s a compelling buy in the crossover segment for customers who are looking for the power and performance of a traditional V-8 but do not want to sacrifice this for fuel economy.”
– Kate Pearce, Flex Marketing Manager
Now, That’s What You Call a Really Smart Car
Techies aren’t easily duped – if a technology doesn’t deliver on its promise the failure is quickly detected and poseurs are eliminated from the playing field. So, being called “official” anything at International CES (Consumer Electronics Show®) might as well be called the Techie Seal of Approval.
So, without further adieu, the official vehicle of the 2010 International CES to be held Jan. 7-10 in Las Vegas is the hot-selling 2010 Ford Taurus, the smartest full-size sedan in America.
Moreover, Ford President and CEO Alan Mulally will deliver the opening keynote address at CES, the world’s largest consumer technology trade show and a make-or-break event for the $172 billion U.S. consumer electronics industry. There, Ford also will announce enhancements to its award-winning Ford SYNC® communications and entertainment system as well as new technology that builds on the company’s connected-car leadership position.
What makes Taurus tech-worthy?
As the official car of CES, the Ford Taurus will be featured prominently with technology demonstrations and in signage, brochures and other written materials at the show.
As Frank Davis, executive director of Ford Product Development notes, the all-new Ford Taurus is a perfect fit for CES. In addition to its expressive styling, the vehicle is loaded with advanced features, making it a virtual dream come true for avid techies.
The Taurus also offers the latest application of SYNC – Traffic, Directions & Information – along with 911 Assist™ and Vehicle Health Report. SYNC’s USB port and Bluetooth capability connects to MP3 players, memory sticks and smartphones, making them accessible by voice control – a more convenient and safe way to use these devices in the car.
For techies with teenaged drivers, Taurus offers MyKey™, a feature that allows parents to program a key that can limit the vehicle’s top speed and audio volume to encourage teens to drive safer and improve fuel efficiency.
In addition to Multi-Contour Seats with Active Motion, voice-activated navigation, SYNC and MyKey, other class-exclusive technologies available on the Ford Taurus include:
- EasyFuel® Capless Fuel-Filler – a self-seal system without a traditional fuel cap. No lost, dangling, or spinning caps. It seals automatically, every time.
- SecuriCode™ Keyless Entry Keypad – a feature that allows you to unlock the driver’s door by entering a five-digit code via a flush-mounted keypad
- Adaptive Cruise Control and Collision Warning with Brake Support – a feature that allows you to set a cruising speed and uses radar technology to automatically adjust your speed and warn you if you’re getting too close to the vehicle in front of you
- Blind Spot Information System (BLIS®) with Cross Traffic Alert – a feature that uses radar technology to warn you of vehicles in your blind spot and alert you to oncoming traffic when you’re backing out of a parking spot
- Sony Audio® System – a surround sound system that delivers Dolby® Digital 5.1 sound through 12 high-quality Sony speakers
- Available EcoBoost™ V-6 – a 3.5-liter twin-turbo V-6 engine that delivers the output of a V-8, 365 horsepower, without compromising its V-6 fuel economy
In addition to being named official vehicle of the 2010 International CES, the 2010 Ford Taurus SHO was dubbed Esquire magazine’s first-ever “Car of the Year.”
Quotes
“The all-new Taurus is Ford’s technology flagship, offering more user-friendly technology to help keep you safe and connected than cars twice its price. And there’s no better venue to show it off than CES. Even the most zealous techies are careful with their money. Taurus offers an unprecedented array of technologies typically reserved for luxury cars at a price that is affordable.”
– Frank Davis, executive director Product Development
“Consumers demand the latest on-the-go innovation in their cars. Ford automobiles are built with cutting-edge technology that makes driving safer and more enjoyable. We are thrilled to welcome Ford to the 2010 International CES and to name the new Ford Taurus as the ‘Official Car of CES.’ We also look forward to hearing Ford’s Alan Mulally kick off the 2010 CES with his opening keynote address on Thursday, Jan. 7.”
– Gary Shapiro, President and CEO of the Consumer Electronics Association® (CEA), producer of the International CES
Steadfast Love or Latest Sexy Head-Turner?
Ford Motor Company used its head-turning 2010 Ford Taurus SHO in an attempt to break up Tonight Show host Conan O’Brien’s “marriage” on national television.
The TV star’s long-running relationship with his 1992 Ford Taurus SHO was challenged when the all-new 2010 Taurus SHO made an appearance on the late-night comedy show on Oct. 29. A national audience saw firsthand whether O’Brien’s steadfast love for his Jewel green SHO could be tempted with this latest sexy head-turner from Ford.
O’Brien’s second-generation ‘Super High Output’ Taurus has been the focus of the late night comedian’s skits many times including during O’Brien’s premier as host of “The Tonight Show” earlier this year.
During the skit O’Brien, who is confident there could never be a better performance sedan than his ’92 Taurus SHO, is tempted by the 2010 model’s 365-horespower V-6 and its high tech features. Amy Marentic, Ford’s Group marketing manager for Taurus, teaches O’Brien a thing or two when it comes to the Taurus SHO.
Find out if the new 2010 Taurus SHO can win over O’Brien at www.thefordstory.com.
Quote
“We were very excited to get the chance to expose Conan to a much more modern and innovative Taurus SHO. There’s no comparison when it comes to comparing his nearly 20 year-old SHO to our new flagship but it was a lot of fun challenging him to find something about the new SHO to joke about.”
— Amy Marentic, Ford’s Group marketing manager for Taurus
Funkmaster Flex Hosts a Chat Live From the SEMA Show
Even if you don’t know why, you probably have heard the name Funkmaster Flex. For more than a more than a decade Flex has been one of America’s top radio personalities, reaching more than 2 million listeners per week.
He’s also an avid car enthusiast, customizing new vehicles and building vintage cars with special attention to style and performance. Most recently, Flex customized the all-new 2010 Ford Taurus SHO, which he will debut at the 2009 Specialty Equipment Manufacturers Association (SEMA) Show in Las Vegas. He has also developed his own car-customizing television programming.
He’ll be hosting a live chat from the show. This trade show attracts 100,000 automotive enthusiasts who are part of the industry. And you have to be in the industry to attend, as it is closed to the public.
Tune in on this Web page Wednesday, November 4, at 4:00 p.m. EDT to see what the Funkmaster has to say about the SEMA show and his latest Ford rides, and see where the conversation goes.
Because the show is not open to the public, we’ll give you a peek into the show with an article from the event, in addition to this chat. Check back during the week of November 2.
Not only does Flex represent his own line of hi-octane automotive accessories, but he also developed and promotes an annual eight-city Funkmaster Flex Custom Car & Bike Show Tour, bringing the most exclusive and expensive candy-colored rides to fans in cities from Canada to Miami.
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You Know You Be Lovin’ My Taurus Bling
Ask any fashionista, and she’ll tell you: Don’t even think about wearing those chandelier earrings with shorts and tennis shoes. No way. There are, after all, certain rules that apply to fashion and accessories. Ask Earl Lucas, exterior design manager for the 2010 Taurus, and he’ll tell you those same accessorizing rules apply even if you’re designing a sophisticated sedan. Just like a person, every car has a personality and an image to convey, says the former jewelry designer. The “accessories,” which in this case are the headlamps of the 2010 Ford Taurus, must be designed and detailed to project the proper image. The Taurus is a confident, well-balanced car. It has the jewelry to match.
Blending form and function
Headlamps can be beautiful, but if they don’t light the way, it doesn’t matter what they look like. Headlamps must meet certain government and engineering specifications in terms of illumination and reflection, and it all has to fit within a finite space.
The lamps themselves break down into three components – but there’s nothing that says the components can’t be beautifully detailed. Starting from the inside, tapering outward into the fenders, these include the turn signal lamp, projector beam and side marker light. Thanks to a sophisticated internal switch, one lens executes both high- and low-beam function. The technology within allows for more aesthetic appeal with no compromise on headlamp function.
Beneath the projection canister, the lower surface features functional louvers, which allow ventilation to cool the projector bulb. Amber side markers finish the lamp, with a graceful character line across the lens that leads into the fender. When illuminated, these lamps lead with a hot spot that gracefully fades away. Each component inside the lamp has a distinct shape, offering sculptural enhancements embellished with subtle lines – all designed to draw the eye toward the upscale grille.
In all, there are three finishes in the headlamp. In terms of value – or what the customer will notice first – they are chrome, satin and black plastic imbued with metallic flake. There are also two grains offering textural relief: a lighter satin and a velvet etch, which provide a rougher, sandblasted-type contrast to the edging.
Adding the proper accessories, or how the Taurus got its jewelry
This year, fashion designers and trend-watchers are talking about bold jewelry, accessories that make a statement, tell a story, get remembered. And we’ll see them, of course. Because there’s always that woman in the room who’s confident, tasteful and perfectly accessorized. Just like the Taurus.
Designer Earl Lucas applied chrome sparingly to the 2010 Ford Taurus, using it only on choice components in the headlamps, the side vent and across the bottom front mouth of the SHO and Limited edition.
“On the Taurus, we used quiet elements of chrome,” Lucas said. “This is a very tall car. You don’t want to put chrome everywhere – you would lose the value. You do it in key spots, to get attention. Anything you put chrome on, that will get attention. The Taurus is a confident car; it doesn’t need that much extra attention.”
Making the switch from jewelry design to industrial design isn’t quite the jump it seems, Lucas says. Balance, form and function all play major roles in designing, whether you’re designing vehicles or earrings, he said. “You start with a mass, a shape. You have an image. Then you layer, you accessorize. Good lines, good proportions and proper detailing are what set your product apart.”
Quotes
“I love working with metal, all kinds of metal, be it sheet metal or precious metal. I still design jewelry. I love seeing how something small, the tiniest detail, something impossibly ornate, can make such a big difference. Whether you’re designing a car or jewelry, you’re using the same principles.”
– Earl Lucas, 2010 Ford Taurus Exterior Design Manager
Ever Wonder How A Car Earns Its Reliability Stripes? Oh, You Do Not Want To Know
Pity the new 2010 Ford Taurus. During the development of Ford’s new flagship sedan, it was pelted with rock and frozen, baked, and rattled. It was flogged with a steel whip, shot with high-powered rifles and slammed with loaded shopping carts.
If Ford engineers seem a bit sadistic, it is all in the name of ensuring the Taurus, debuting later this summer, can withstand anything the open road can throw at it and more. Think of it as boot camp for cars, extreme torture testing that helps Taurus deliver industry leading reliability along with its head-turning design and suite of advanced technologies.
Here are just a few of the torture tests the Taurus endured.
Shake, rattle and roll: The Taurus body is road tested for the equivalent of 150,000 miles. At various points during the road test, we secure the vehicle onto a platform that shakes and twists the vehicle like a giant paint mixer. Any squeaks or rattles detected during the tests were fixed by engineering teams, ensuring an ultra-quiet ride for the life of the vehicle.
Bumpy ride: Test drivers had a field day running the Taurus into curbs and over railroad tracks and speeding over bumps, ditches and potholes to test out the suspension and ensure air bags didn’t misfire.
Frozen and fried: The Taurus was subjected to arctic cold and Death Valley heat without ever leaving Ford’s labs in Dearborn. Ford’s environmental chamber can simulate climates ranging from 40 degrees below zero to 180 degrees to ensure all vehicle systems operate reliably in extreme weather.
Gravel vs. Paint: Best in class paint was a must for the new Taurus so Ford left no stone unturned –or unfired in this case. Engineers tested the paint finish by blasting it with a gravel gun to simulate driving on unpaved roads. Only paints that resisted chips and scratches and retained their luster passed muster for the Taurus.
Rusty situation: The Taurus was repeatedly sprayed with a salt solution, driven on a gravel road and then baked in high humidity and heat, to test its ability to fend off corrosion. The Taurus is subjected to these tests 24 hours a day until the equivalent of 10 years of severe weather exposure is simulated to ensure that rust doesn’t stand a chance.
Safe and sound: Ford engineers conduct unusual tests to calibrate the sensitivity of air bag pressure sensors, taking thousands of impact readings. These tests include ramming a shopping cart loaded with a 110-pound weight into the vehicle doors and lashing the underside of the vehicle with a steel whip. Ford engineers even fire shotguns and rifles at vehicles to ensure that air bags go off when needed and stay packed away when they are not.
Putting on the brakes: Mountainous terrain, slippery highways, stop-and-go traffic, dusty interstates and rain-drenched roads are just a few of the real-world driving conditions Ford test engineers conducted on the new Taurus to check brakes for roughness, noise and wear.
Take a seat: What may look like a robotic boxing match is actually and advanced test for the most used parts of the vehicle: the seats. Robots simulate customers entering and exiting seats thousands of times by programming real-world customer usage parameters into robots to simulate how people of all shapes and sizes affect the upholstery, seat cushions and seat structures.
Open and shut case: Robotic arms that continually open and close doors, hoods and tailgates simulate 10 years of customer use in just days. This symphony of perpetual motion results in 84,000 open-and-close cycles. This test is also run at arctic cold temperatures of 40oF below zero to desert heat cooking of 180°F.
Quotes:
“We determine what the most abusive driver would do to our vehicles, and then take it a step further. Taurus buyers can rest assured this vehicle has passed the most extreme tests we could devise.”
– Pete Reyes, Taurus chief engineer
Amy Marentic Hosts a Live Chat About Taurus Technologies Important to Moms
Amy Marentic is more than just the car marketing manager for large cars and crossovers at Ford, she is passionate about the market and the new Taurus in way that many others might not be. For her, the Taurus represents both a professional and personal goal.
Join the chat below, scheduled for Friday, September 25, at 2:30 p.m. EDT to see what we mean.
Trained as an aerospace engineer, Marentic aimed to be an astronaut. During her senior year at the University of Michigan, she realized that an automotive career could provide years of exhilaration, compared with a brief ride in space she might never achieve.
Marentic was passionate about the reinvigoration and repositioning of Taurus as Ford’s flagship sedan. The data she and the team evaluated told them that the full-size sedan market had changed. With the emergence of crossovers and sport utility vehicles as family vehicles, Marentic and the team began to see Taurus in a different light.
“We found that sedans were becoming a reward for a job well done, as opposed to the quaint stereotype of a family sedan,” added Marentic. “The customers we spoke to were interested in a car that showed where they were headed, as opposed to where they had been. Sedans were becoming a ‘me’ thing, rather than a ‘we’ thing.”
These insights became the justification to execute on the expressive Taurus design proposal and to illustrate that the marketplace was ready for luxury levels of convenience technology.
As the new 2010 Taurus was moving through the development process, Marentic and the team saw yet another market opportunity in contemporizing the original Taurus SHO formula.
Adding a super high-output EcoBoost V-6 to the expressive new Taurus sedan, incorporating all-wheel drive with a unique sport-tuned suspension, while keeping the SHO-specific design cues subtle and stealth, enabled a balance of authenticity and innovation.
Researchers from the team also spent considerable time listening to several Taurus SHO enthusiast organizations. Vocal club members stressed the importance of a super high-output six-cylinder engine, a performance-tuned suspension and subtle SHO identification.
Marentic and Team Taurus presented the SHO business case to Ford’s senior management with equal doses of market data and passionate enthusiasm. Given a green light, the concept became reality in less than 12 months.
“From the time I started at Ford, I wanted a brand new Taurus SHO of my own,” said Marentic. “Consider this the realization of a personal goal, as well as a professional objective.”
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