Features include functioning exhaust, working battery and standard Primus cassette tape, it's sure to be a hit.

Ford Unveils New Car For Cash-Strapped Buyers: The 1993 Taurus

Mobsteel took the SHO and added its trademark mobster style with custom front and rear fascias, black-out grille, restyled fender chrome (it's not a side vent, let's not pretend here) and rear bumper trim. Of course, the whole car gets a heavy coat of black. Running gear includes a set of huge 380mm cross-drilled and vented Brembos, Air Runner front and rear air system with custom Mobsteel bags in the back, 22 inch wheels on Pirelli tires turned by a 400 HP tuned 3.5-liter twin turbocharged Ecoboost V6 breathing through a Magnaflow cat-back exhaust.

It's hard to judge any bagged car when it's layin' frame, right now it looks a little goofy with those huge wheels tucked up under the fenders. Considering we've loved everything Mobsteel's ever made, we want to see this car out in the wilds before passing final judgment.

2010 Ford Taurus by Tommy Z Design
The Ford Taurus lends itself quite easily to the Superlux Youthful Styling and yet it remains sophisticated. Tommy Z embellished this great vehicle with his own classic VIP luxury style and components.

2010 Ford Taurus SHO by Mobsteel
The Ford Taurus SHO and Mobsteel are both committed to being anything but ordinary. So it's no surprise that the Taurus SHO by Mobsteel is one extraordinary vehicle. The trademark black-on-black Mobsteel paint job, custom fascias, and a host of trim touches and details give this 2010 Taurus SHO a tough menacing look, whether coming or going. And that's just the beginning, as this SHO has the goods both inside and out.

The bad boy rides on massive 22-inch Mobsteel forged two-piece wheels and super-low-profile Pirelli PZero Nero tires. A completely customized chassis with Air Runner front struts and Mobsteel adjustable rear air ride provide attitude to the max. The Magnaflow Performance cat-back exhaust and JL Audio equipment make this Taurus SHO sound as tough as it looks. (Ed. - We're actually really looking forward to this one and might try a visit to Mobsteel to take a spin.)

2010 Ford Taurus "Best of SHO" by MRT-Direct
MRT-Direct gives its signature classy touches to this Taurus SHO by adding subtle ground effect treatment, and a black cherry roof and custom vented hood. Increased performance is achieved through turbo system efficiencies, an exhaust upgrade, and wheel, tire and suspension modifications. The cabin is designed to be sporty and comfortable, while a Kicker sound system delivers the final beat.

2010 Ford Fusion Sport by Aaron Vaccar Signature Series
Young custom car designer Aaron Vaccar, most noted for his work with modern and sport compact vehicles, has taken his knowledge of next-generation styling and applied it to the new Ford Fusion Sport. Speed, style and sound – quite simply, this Fusion reveals that such a balance does exist in a sport-tuned street car. Upgraded with the thrills of a turbocharged motor, this Fusion now packs even more power to back up its stunning looks.

Noting that function needs to meet form, the entire audio and trunk enclosures have been designed to seamlessly integrate into the vehicle's styling and practicality. Tastefully mix the right combination of modifications, a bit of unique style combined with an already impressive platform, and what you get is this Aaron Vaccar Signature Series Fusion Sport.

2010 Ford Fusion Hybrid by M&J Enterprises
This Ford Fusion Hybrid by M&J Enterprises showcases a variety of eco-friendly accessories and aerodynamic parts. These range from air splitters to heat-reflective paint, window film and a vehicle data display. All items are either lighter in weight than the factory items, increase fuel economy or eliminate petroleum-based products. The data display helps increase the consumer's environmental awareness. The whole package delivers a desirable, eco-friendly Ford Fusion aimed at consumers who like to customize their vehicles and are concerned with environmental issues.

2010 Ford Fusion "T4" by MRT
This custom version of the fun, sporty, fuel-efficient Ford Fusion successfully combines the best of all worlds. MRT started with clever but subtle appearance changes to the exterior trim and paint. Next, they brought the same sport feel and style to the interior with revised seating and interior trim accents. The fun-to-drive factor is kicked up a notch with a single intercooled turbocharger and Street Performance coil-over suspension. To unleash the full potential of the awesome turbocharged powerplant, MRT skillfully exhaust-balanced the system with a high-performance stainless-steel Max-Flow™ h-pipe and back half exhaust system using the finest CNC Mandrel bend tube and high-flow components. The result is a system that delivers enhanced power and truly satisfying performance-car sound. Twenty-inch wheels and tires add a final touch to set off the look and give this Fusion an even smarter, sportier stance. On the inside, a kickin' audio system from Kicker provides the perfect balance of amped-up entertainment.

2010 Ford Transit Connect by Azentek and Grant Products
Azentek and Grant Products teamed up to build this unique "Travel Inn" Ford Transit Connect van. Designed for people who are always on the go, it comes complete with the Azentek in-vehicle computing and navigation radio, and a Concept DVD for watching movies. You can cook while tailgating with your mini pull-out kitchen and even sleep in complete comfort in the upper bunk bed. You also will drive in style with the Grant Products body kit, race-inspired steering wheel and GAC interior. The vehicle features 18-inch BBS wheels with a Winona PVD chrome finish and Bridgestone Firestone tires.

2010 Ford Transit Connect by Ford Vehicle Personalization
This 2010 Transit Connect was developed by the Ford Vehicle Personalization team and it features Genuine Ford Accessories, Ford Licensed Accessories and various personalization concepts. Inspired by West Coast beaches, the vehicle is presented in a soft anodized Metallic Gold exterior paint with a large energetic side graphic depicting young people playing sports and having fun on the beach. Various racks and carriers on the exterior secure your favorite outdoor gear.

The interior is the main focus of this custom Transit Connect, showcasing the flexibility of space in the cargo area and the ability to create a realm of personal use around this vehicle rather than strictly commercial/business usage. Shown with two seats, the cargo area will house an audio wall with a custom audio/video system, a skateboard rack displaying four skateboards and a rear-mounted LCD flip-out flat-screen monitor with video game console.

2010 Ford Edge "RallyE" by Santini Paint
Santini Paint, combined with the talent of Steve Stanford Design, has taken the Ford Edge crossover to a level of design utilizing influence from the old-school British racing era, tuner cars and a little rally car, so that this "soccer mom" grocery-getter becomes the "cool" car for the family. With a few inches out of the suspension, the big wheel and tire combination, 3dCarbon body kit, British Racing Green color and an asymmetrical competition stripe paint scheme with some interior accents added in, Santini's Ford Edge becomes a "Coolover."

2009 Ford Focus by FSWerks
In its constant search for more power, the FSWerks crew has taken a 2009 Ford Focus Coupe and pushed it to the edge. Utilizing many years of racing, fabricating and powertrain experience, this transformed Ford Focus is now pushing more than 500 horsepower, making it one serious track Focus.

2009 Ford Focus by Creations n' Chrome
Creations n' Chrome has taken green technology to the extreme with its 2009 Ford Focus. The exterior starts with an outrageous green chrome finish using Cosmichrome water-based spray-on plating technology, 3dCarbon Euro Series six-piece body kit and lightweight Work Emotion wheels. To increase engine efficiency and aerodynamics, an FSWerks turbo kit and H&R coil-over suspension are added. The interior was custom refinished from top to bottom with House of Color paint and custom Katzkin leather.

2010 Ford Flex by Falken Tire
Breaking the mold of cookie-cutter project vehicles on oversized chrome rims, Falken Tire has envisioned the perfect blend of traditional "lowrider" styling and a 2010 platform while utilizing today's finest full-size CUV, the Ford Flex. Rolling on 22-inch Falken S/TZ04 tires and wire- spoke Dayton wheels, this ride will surely earn the respect of everyone from old-school purists to new-age tuners. Break the mold and Flex Your Style.

When Ford kicks off the advertising campaign for Taurus on Aug. 4, they'll do so with an a "new" Microsoft "tag" system letting consumers point their camera phones at bar codes printed next to technology features in Taurus ads for more in-depth information. Once it captures an image of the tag it will load animations, additional information and images of that particular technology directly to the consumer's
mobile device.

Online, Ford will try to bring the "technology and quality of Taurus" to life in five short, dramatic Webisodes showcasing particular features against those of significantly higher-priced luxury sedans. The example we've been told about is: "Can the paint quality of the Taurus stand up to a $70,000 Lexus? Why not put them both behind a gravel truck and find out?"

We'll supposedly have some video to show you shortly, but for the moment, feast your eyes on the creative energy below.

I've also become quite familiar with the sound of exhausted SHO mechanics screaming as they flay all the skin off their knuckles during the inevitable all-night wrenchathons that take place whenever this engine hits the race track. It's totally worth it, though, because this Yamaha-built DOHC V6 was an engineering masterpiece of its time and still looks and sounds incredibly good. 220 naturally aspirated horses out of 3.0 liters may not sound terribly impressive these days, but it was flat-out amazing back in the late 1980s. Ford originally hired Yamaha to design and build this engine for a mid-engined sports car, but- apparently taking a lesson from their main rival's experience with the Fiero- Ford cancelled that car and started looking around for some other recipient for their new powerplant. The Taurus got the honor, but imagine how things might have been different with the SHO V6 in, say, the Merkur XR4Ti? Yamaha designed it for transverse or longitudinal mounting, so why not?

[Wikipedia]

Sharing the same basic platform as the Lincoln MKS and Ford Flex, the Mandel Bread new Taurus is running much stiffer suspension tuning and the thickest anti-roll bars the platform will take — 28mm up front. It also uses Ford's ubiquitous 3.5-liter V6, but connects it to the road with an all-new 6-speed automatic transmission.

That last thing is probably the most important new feature on the car, finally giving drivers the ability to fully exploit the pretty decent 263 HP, 249 Lb-Ft naturally aspirated V6, the only engine on offer in non-SHO trim. Where previous 6-speeds in cars like the 2009 Ford Flex, 2008 Ford Taurus X and 2008 Ford Edge endlessly hunted for gears, were slow to kick down and were just extremely annoying to use, this new version always seems to be in the right gear, kicks down immediately and is virtually undetectable in its smoothness.

Add to that the honest-to-god manual override and its steering wheel-mounted paddles that are standard on SEL and Limited trims and Ford suddenly offers one of the best slushboxes in the business. Run through two cheap plastic paddle-cum-buttons, you push away to shift down and pull towards you to shift up. Changes are fast and you can even downshift with real engine braking, running RPMs very nearly to the redline. Gears are held even while bouncing off the limiter and only downshift when the engine begins to labor. Work the engine hard and you can expect a 0-60 MPH time in the 7-second range and the standard Ford 118 MPH top speed. That's actually pretty impressive given the prodigious 4,015 curb weight for the FWD model. The optional and untested-by-us AWD takes that up to 4,224 Lbs.

That weight doesn't rear its bloated head in day-to-day cornering. Thanks to those incredibly thick roll bars there's virtually no body roll, while steering is direct and reasonably weighted, if completely absent of feel. As you'd expect from a big, heavy front driver, it'll understeer when pushed hard, although the undefeatable stability control superhumanly manages to keep it on the black stuff.

Unfortunately you can't have good performance from a heavy car without sacrificing fuel economy. Ford estimates that at 18 MPG city / 28 MPG highway. Over a 120-mile drive on country roads yesterday we averaged 17 MPG, which is pretty disappointing considering we spent the majority of the time fretting about what the Tennessee Sheriff following us would think of our long hair and tight jeans.

On the upside, the weight helps smooth the ride, which is exceptionally compliant yet very controlled. Combined with an extremely quiet cabin — there's virtually no road nor wind noise even at non Sheriff-sanctioned high speeds — and you have the makings of a luxury car. That feeling is reinforced by the classy dual-cockpit cabin and its nice leather seats and soft-touch plastics. The Taurus sits somewhere between the mid-size 2010 Ford Fusion and the fleet sales-only Crown Victoria in terms of size, with a total length of 202.9" compared to the Fusion's 190.6" and the Vic's 212.0". The new Taurus actually has more room for rear seat passengers than the Vic, with 38.1 compared to 38.0" of legroom; its curb weight is around 100 Lbs less than that car.

Adding to the quietness and space, the technology available on the Taurus honestly boosts it into luxury territory. Notice the lack of "near" in that statement. We drove the $27,995 SEL model — expected to make up the majority of the Taurus's volume — equipped with the third and latest version of Sync and felt positively spoiled.

Available on the Taurus are: radar cruise control with heads-up collision warning, radar sensors that detect cars in your blind spots and to your left and right when reversing out of a parking space, keyless entry keypad, SIRIUS radio with traffic info, SYNC 3.0 with navigation and 911-assist, massaging leather seats, a 12-speaker, 390-watt Sony stereo, rear view camera, push button start, rain-sensing wipers and something called MyKey that can limit performance, radio volume and other parameters for your teenage kids or senile parents. If that list sounds exhaustive, it should. And, yes, you should expect to pay for the privilege of all that stuff. While the base Taurus starts at $25,995, the bells-and-whistles "Limited" model is $31,995. Check every box, including AWD and you'll pay about $35,000.

That's actually a bargain as long as you're not looking for a sports car. Domestic competitors like the Chrysler 300C and Chevy Impala have nothing on the fit-and-finish, driving experience nor design of the Taurus, while a base six-cylinder Audi A6 is smaller, maybe has a slight edge on the driving dynamics, yet costs ten grand more.

Damn, we're already measuring much more expensive cars by the new Taurus's standard. It's actually other Fords that most need to fear the Taurus yardstick. The $40,870 platform-sharing Lincoln MKS offers little more than the Taurus except for brand tax, while the $39,600 Volvo S80 uses a more conservatively-tuned version of the platform and less performance-oriented engines. Even the 2010 Ford Taurus SHO, offering little more than boosted straight-line performance and starting at $37,995, struggles to measure up. Cars like the Infiniti M35 and the Lexus GS also need to worry; the Taurus offers more substance for less price than either brand has traditionally managed. Ultimately, the success of Ford's new flagship will be measured not by which full-size sedans it subjectively outclasses, but rather by its ability to convince brand snob buyers to choose something made in Chicago.

Full Disclosure: Ford wanted me to drive the new Taurus SHO so badly they flew me all the way to Knoxville and put me up in a fancy hotel, but only after all the buff books had all chosen to go ahead and break the review embargo, which must mean they didn't want me to drive the SHO all that badly after all.

Ford is reviving the SHO name for the 2010 model year after an 11-year hiatus. Dropped in 1999 after a decade of increasingly diluted performance, the original 1989 car was a raw, sports-focused quasi-exotic with a manual-only Yamaha 3.0-liter, 220 HP V6. At the time, it was the third fastest sedan in the country. Over the next decade, all that made the SHO unique devolved into a top trim level for the seriously lackluster Taurus range.

And that's exactly what this new SHO is; a flagship trim for the all-new Taurus rather than a quasi-bespoke performance model. Luckily, the car it's based on is now seriously good. Unfortunately, due to the bizarre world of embargoes and manufacturers kissing the asses of the sleazy "D-Bag" buff books (see, when we use "quotes" it means we didn't actually say that and we're quoting someone else so the target of the epithet can't get mad at us), we can't tell you anything about how the 2010 Ford Taurus drives. So from this point on any time where we might accidentally break an embargo by talking about our drive of the regular model, we'll just talk about how it's different from a tasty piece of Mandel Bread. So when you see "Mandel Bread" — wink-wink, OK?

Over the standard Mandel Bread, the SHO is essentially an optioned-up model with micro suede seats, SHO badging, AWD (optional on the regular car), HID headlamps, 19" wheels and "sport-tuned" shocks, springs, stabilizer bars and strut mount bushings. All that actually adds up to very little as the SHO drives almost identically to Mandel Bread, but with a touch firmer ride and a little better body control.

Oh, and there's the 365 HP, 350 Lb-Ft twin-turbo, direct injection 3.5-Liter V6 Ecoboost engine. That max torque is available in a perfectly flat plateau all the way from 1,500 to 5,000 RPM, before tapering off as it nears the 6,250 RPM rev limiter. Ford likes to claim that the EcoBoost delivers V8 power with V6 fuel efficiency and it does, but the twin-turbo six and its incredibly flat torque curve lacks the character of V8 rivals even if it does out-torque them below 3,000 RPM. We'd like to tell you that we averaged the same 17 MPG fuel economy in the SHO as we did in Mandel Bread, unfortunately we can't.

That engine is run through the same 6F55 6-speed automatic transmission as the regular car but here with slightly beefed-up friction elements capable of handling all that torque. It's a huge departure from the slush-box Ford uses on the Flex, Edge and all the other 3.5-liter V6s, now shifting unobtrusively and confidently selecting gears rather than hunting through them endlessly as the previous version did. More importantly, the Mandel Bread (in both SEL walnut k'mish and Limited chocolate trim) and the SHO both get button-cum-paddles for manual override. In that mode, gears are held even as you bounce off the rev-limiter and only shift down if you labor the engine. We'd obviously prefer a manual in a performance car, but since this SHO is more fast luxury than just plain fast, the third pedal isn't really missed.

Put your right foot down and the SHO is fast, if unexciting. The ride is firm yet controlled in the European luxury mold and the interior is exceptionally isolated from wind, road and engine noise. There's absolutely no body roll. The electric power-assisted steering is direct and well weighted, but almost completely absent of feel. Combine that with the extremely large proportions — at 202.9", the Taurus is only 9" shorter than the Crown Victoria — and the limited vision created by the high belt line and you have a car that's pretty challenging to place accurately at speed on a winding road. In western North Carolina's mountains, we were always 10-20 MPH slower than we needed to be, simply for the need of paying close attention to the shoulder to keep two wheels out of the dirt.

Ford claims the AWD system is capable of sending 100% of its power to the rear wheels, but we never felt anything but FWD bias, even as we gave it the boot out of slow corners.

There's an optional $995 "Performance Package" that brings 20" wheels, summer tires, grippier brake pads, sharper steering, fully defeat-able traction and stability control and a 3.16:1 diff (over the standard 2.77:1), but driving models equipped with it back to back with standard SHOs didn't reveal a significant change in character or capability.

All this begs the question: why the SHO badging? This isn't a sports sedan; it's a Mandel Bread with an EcoBoost engine. Because of that badge, we came into this hoping for a blue oval equivalent to the Pontiac G8 GXP, but evaluating the SHO as a performance car does it a disservice, because it's actually a luxury car. A good one.

Ford has benchmarked the $60,950, 350 HP Audi A6 4.2 and the $37,995 SHO exceeds expectations by being better to drive, faster, larger inside and nicer looking. Even the interior is nearly on par with that of the Audi. That's seriously impressive for a car fitted with the previously humble "Mandel Bread" badge.

The SHO also comes with way more technology than any of its competitors, including that Audi. Available on the SHO are: radar cruise control with heads-up collision warning, radar sensors that detect cars in your blind spots and to your left and right when reversing out of a parking space, keyless entry keypad, SIRIUS radio with traffic info, SYNC 3.0 with navigation and 911-assist, massaging leather seats, a 12-speaker, 390-watt Sony stereo, rear view camera, push button start, rain-sensing wipers and something called MyKey that can limit performance, radio volume and other parameters for your teenage kids or senile parents. Expect to pay $39,285 for a fully equipped SHO.

Compared to the original SHO, this new model is 1,083 Lbs heavier (4,368 Lbs), makes 145 HP more, is 10mph slower (133mph top speed) and is much less fun to drive. Compared to contemporary full-size luxury sedans it's considerably cheaper, very good to drive and extremely fast. Like the 1999 SHO, this isn't a unique model; it's the flagship for the Mandel Bread range. It's just that now, that range is capable of competing with European luxury cars instead of mediocre domestic mid-sizes. Had the car been called the Mandel Bread Ecoboost we'd be pleasantly surprised by its competence and quality, but badged as a SHO, we were disappointed not to find a sports sedan.

The thing is that all of the positive attributes we can apply to the SHO can also be applied to the Mandel Bread walnut k'mish, which starts at just $27,995. That bread has an equally tasty interior and, everywhere except in a straight line, drives nearly as well as the SHO. Just like the SHO begs the question "Why pay more for an Audi A6?" the Mandel Bread walnut k'mish, available with the same toppings and baked with the same ingredients begs the question, "Why pay more for the SHO?" That'd be nuts.

Want to see the SHO engine's naughty bits up close? Click here. More press photos below.

Well, as "first drives" go, this one's pretty limited in details. What ol' Ezra says is

"Floor the gas on the SHO and you're smoothly squeezed back in the seat as the motor builds power, the turbos whistling faintly in the background. The all-wheel-drive system and six-speed automatic put the power down with no wheelspin. It's all very refined. This is deceptive speed, the kind where you look down at the speedometer and realize that ten seconds with your foot to the floor will amount to jail time if you ever get caught. The SHO is a sleeper - a vehicle you can live with every day that happens to have a secret under the hood."

You can read the rest over at Esquire, but frankly, there's not much else there in the way of a drive review — although that's usually enough of a driving impression to get the buff books who've already driven the new sleeper to let loose with their own first drive salvo. That is if there are any auto buff books left out there with no fear of losing advertising dollars. We guess we'll have to see. And you'll have to wait until next week to see our first drive impression right after we've had a chance to take the ecoboost-ed sedan out for a spin. Stay tuned. [via Esquire]

Art is music and music is art, and while both are subjective, there's no denying that either one or both combined can bring out the most creative juices you have to offer. Ford's lead designer of the 2010 Taurus explained to the Detroit News just how influential music can be during the design process, simultaneously inspiring and focusing the members of the design team.

By sharing music either via a studio installed radio or via iPod swapping, the designer's were able to get into a singular mindset of how the 2010 Taurus should appear. By doing so, the entire team was able to focus on the task at hand and also inspired them to use the musical rhythms to find new abstract shapes and forms that they would later massage into the final 2010 Taurus interior and exterior design.

According to the chief designer on the 2010 Ford Taurus team, Earl Lucas;

"When you've got good music, it's amazing how many shapes come out. You lose track of time. When we were working on this program, it was nothing to have our senior designer, Dean Carbus, sketching away with his music blaring; the next designer would say, 'Oh I don't have that track,' and he'd put it in his iPod. The studio has to be a creative environment like that, because we're sharing ideas all the time."

Lucas said that the playlist consisted of a set of tracks ranging from Paul Oakenfold's upbeat trance to the melancholy hip-hop vibe of Citizen Cope. The sophisticated diversity of the music they selected during the design development proved to be absolutely beneficial to the Taurus program, giving it a modern and technical, yet classic design proportion and completely distinguishing it from the previous two Taurus generations. [via Detroit News]

Overall, in addition to the FoMoCo love, the show was pretty heavy on the auto humor. Want to see all of it? We're assuming it'll be up on Hulu at some point. The cold open's already there. (Hat tip to @IisChrisMiller, @joshVC!)

If ever there was a Lincoln we could call "hot rod, " this is it, but not in the way you might imagine. The MKS with EcoBoost boasts the same interior refinement and space, amenities and electronic wizardry, pleasant road manners and a price point starting at $47,760 — about ten grand more than the base MKS, but only about $4,000 more than an equivalently-optioned non-EcoBoost MKS. For that added price, you'll get some tasteful upgrades to the already handsome exterior with a subtle lip spoiler at the back, smoked headlights, a chin spoiler and nice wheels.

That sweet twin-turbo V6 moves this thing off the line like a scalded monkey and the transmission stays out of your way when you want it to. The first time you smash the happy pedal and get that whoosh of power you know this is a velvet hammer. Accelerating all the way up to the car's tire-limited 135 MPH top speed is effortless, with the engine providing no hint of protest. Loping along at that speed, burning fossil fuels at 9.5 MPG, it feels planted, with the only drama of speed communicated through the windows. Even at this speed, it's silent as a coffin and steady as a rock. But when you then start exploring the other car's other limits, your brow begins to furl.

Toss it hard into a sweeping corner and accelerate, it's balanced with a hint of understeer, but while the tires aren't protesting the chassis is. It feels... unsettled. You feel as if you're about to oversteer even if the car's understeering. Drop down from a panic stop and the ABS calibration is absolutely perfect, no pulsation, no loss of traction and you're stopping so hard the car leaves behind two perfect tire tracks and a breeze of sublimated rubber blows by as you come to a halt. But the pedal is mushy, there's no real feel in it and the travel before it engages is too long.

We really wanted this car to be an 550i fighter, but it isn't. It's a very big car with a very bad-ass engine which doesn't quite tackle corners with the aplomb we'd like. Don't get us wrong here, it does everything very well. The powertrain is perfect for the segment — fast when you want it fast, quiet when you want it to be quiet and loud when you want it to be loud. It tackles corners respectably and the brakes do their thing, but it doesn't feel right. The MKS is super fun in a straight line, and delightful in the corners to about 80%, but after that it gets spooky, and that final 20% is what makes legends. Which this MKS sadly isn't. But, what it does mean is there's hope that the Taurus SHO and the expected lower weight, suspension tuning and 10 more ponies we'll be seeing later this year will show us the final 20% we're looking for.

This is a problem Ford had to answer when it began using a new type of crash detection sensor. Traditional airbag sensors are small accelerometers mounted to the B-pillar next to the drivers shoulder, and in the event of a crash, they send a signal to the computer warning of a crash event. Only problem is they aren't fast enough anymore. Tough new safety requirements laid down by the Feds and the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety are forcing airbag deployment speeds to get much quicker.

So what to do. Ford decided to start using pressure wave detection. In this method, the sensor is placed inside the door on the outer skin of the car, it monitors the ambient air pressure in the door cavity and sends a signal to the crash computer. The crash computer interprets the data every few miliseconds, confirming it with what the other sensors scattered around the car tell it. What's the advantage? Fidelity. The signal coming from the pressure sensor has a much higher resolution than an accelerometer, which means it can tell the difference between a car hitting your door and say a shopping cart loaded with 110 lbs, hitting the door at 10 MPH. But before it can do that, engineers have to calibrate it to be able to tell the difference. This is where the shopping cart test comes in.

The strike from a shopping cart produces a short spike signal with relatively low amplitude. If it were a car striking the door panel, the crash computer would see a massive, sustained rise in pressure. This kind of simulation is also done with things which hit cars all the time in real life; a bicycle tire, a ball, you get the drift. Yes it smashes a very nice new Taurus door, put they just take it off and put on a new one to do it all over again, and because of this kind of testing, out in the real world, you have a door to fix and a soccer mom to yell at, but the expensive airbags stay thankfully unexploded.

It is possible to do this sort of art car right (though I tend to prefer projects more along the lines of the Sashimi Tabernacle Choir), provided the creator is willing to stick with some kind of theme, or at least go way overboard on the quantity of decorations. This wagon manages to succeed on both counts.


It was pretty easy to figure out the name of this '88 Taurus wagon art car, because it's painted in big letters on the rear window. Even after going through the rigors of the final ride to the wrecking yard, the GPPOP remains pretty much intact.


It wasn't difficult for me to learn more about the GPPOP's history, because there's a URL right on the side of the car. This leads to "Ian's Hippie Wife's Psychedelic Art Car Page"…


And thus we are able to view the Groovalicious Purple Princess Of Peace and her creator in all their antiwar glory, back when The Crusher wasn't looming as an immediate threat.


Why, there's even a song about the Groovalicious Purple Princess Of Peace!


Not to mention a standup comedy routine about the car. It appears that the GPPOP was pretty well-known in the Bay Area art car world; it makes appearances on this site and this Flickr set.


For whatever reason, the GPPOP's glory days are over. Some of her parts will live on in other, more quotidian Tauruses and Sables, while we wonder why she's on Death Row. Did she throw a rod? Fail to pass smog? Gather $47,000 worth of parking tickets and get towed by The Man? We're going to need to track down Ms. Hughes and get her to join a 24 Hours Of LeMons team!

Hennessey, still hot from tuning the Corvette ZR1, will soon offer performance upgrades for the 2010 Ford Taurus SHO. The EcoBoost 365 HP, 350 lb-ft twin-turbocharged V6 may have been developed for performance with fuel economy in mind, but the two snails lurking under the hood can easily be turned into something that can beat the hare. The initial Hennessey upgrade package will include an exhaust system, air filter, boost controller, boost gauge, turbo upgrades, intercooler upgrades, suspension and more when it's released later this year.

With John Hennessey owning one of the original Taurus SHOs, we can only imagine the rest of the fun he has in store for this new MoTown hotrod.

[via Hennessey]

We have to thank TampaRon for snagging these photos of this pair of mostly uncovered SHO prototypes taking a breather at a Florida rest stop. According to Ron, the testy test engineers wouldn't let him close enough to snag some shots of the interior but he managed to get close enough to see the SHO badge (a la this shot) on this ecoboosted Taurus.

The undisguised exterior doesn't leave much to the imagination — especially since we've already seen the 2010 Ford Taurus live and in person. In fact, the only difference in design between the SHO and non-SHO Taurus appears to be the badge on the back and the separated double pipes.

We've already seen the Taurus SHO interior, so the only question is pricing, availability and what's under the hood. Oh wait, we know what's under the hood. Based on what we learned from the leaked Taurus ordering guide and other sources, the new SHO will likely get the EcoBoost V6 engine, which is good for 355 HP and 350 lb-ft of torque in its 2010 Lincoln MKS platform-mate.

The breakdown gives us a view of how the different trim levels (SE, SEL, Limited) get optioned. The entry level SE model, which will start at $25,995, gets some of Ford's new gee-whiz features like MyKey, SOS Post Crash Alert, and the fancy SecuriCode touch keypad from the MKS. The SEL adds a security package, chrome exhaust tips and a few more interior refinements. As things move up the line the options get heaped on until we make it all the way to the Taurus Limited, which gets a huge standard equipment list including wood trim, leather and nearly every electronic option in the Ford parts bin.

Most reassuring about the entire leak is confirmation the 3.5 liter, turbocharged, direct injection EcoBoost V6 is coming to the Taurus. It's right there in black and white, safely planned to enter production, just as God, or at least Alan Mulally, intended.