You're probably becoming more familiar with the current Ford Taurus thanks to the wide adoption of the Ford Police Interceptor sedan. While the biggest Ford sedan was redesigned for 2010, its bones are getting quite old. Thankfully, a new Taurus is coming in a couple years and it's taking a lot from the much more successful Fusion.
According to Edmunds, the 2016 Ford Taurus will go on sale sometime around the summer of 2015 and share pieces with its smaller brother, the Fusion.
That's a significant departure from the platform it shares with the Ford Flex, Ford Explorer and Lincoln MKS right now. It dates back to the 2005 Ford Five Hundred. Which really dates back to the 1999 Volvo S80. So the Taurus has some of the oldest bones among new cars.
The other issue with the current Taurus is that it weighs a ton – two tons, actually, which is quite a lot even for a full-size front-wheel drive sedan. The Fusion is several hundred pounds lighter in most versions and not much shorter.
Edmunds' source says weight loss is key to the new Taurus program, espeically for the performance-minded SHO:
The problem with today's Taurus is that it is overweight and even the high performance SHO is not really competitive. With all the power from the (365-horsepower) V6 EcoBoost, it is pretty hard to overcome the amount of mass that the SHO has to move.
I've always liked the idea of a modern-day Taurus SHO, but the fact that the current one is a two-ton machine doesn't help invoke memories of classic SHOs. Put that Ecoboost V6 in something that's about 500 pounds lighter and something interesting might happen.
It's unlikely the Taurus will get much smaller externally than the current car, which is almost 17-feet long. While it boasts an enormous trunk, it's not as spacious inside as the new Chevy Impala, for example, so let's hope for a roomier interior.
Expect more Ecoboost fours, like the 2.3-liter slated for the 2015 Mustang, and a nine-speed automatic when the 2016 Taurus goes on sale.
Photo: Ford