Back to the Taurus GL—the shape may have changed radically from the last Taurus I drove back in 1995, but sadly, the driving experience hasn't. The steering is still over boosted and doesn’t transmit any feedback from the road. The engine is torquey and able to propel the car quickly to speed, but doesn’t elicit any emotion even if you floor the throttle.

 
Our test car was equipped with a four-speed automatic transmission with the awful column-mounted shifter. At part throttle, shift points are quite low, below 2500 rpm.  That’s quite sufficient because of t`e capacious engine. It also helps fuel economy, which can exceed that of 4-cylinders of lesser displacement, because you don’t have to rev it that high. 

 
Turn-in grip and braking are competent, but the suspension setting is definitely on the soft side. Road feel is absent, and the ride tends to feel floaty. It’s no surprise that this car and the F150 were made by the same company. If you imagine the typical American car, the Taurus is it: big engine, soft riding, large, roomy and utterly boring to drive. In The Truman Show, Jim Carrey plays a man who lives the "ideal American life". Do you have to guess which car he drives? Yup, it’s this model Ford Taurus. 

How does the car’s owner feel about it? Between this 56,000-km Taurus and his 125,000-km. 1992 Honda Accord, the owner would rather keep the Accord and sell the Taurus. That speaks volumes. 

American manufacturers, and Ford in particular, seem to have recognized that family people do also want some fun with their driving. Could it be the Jaguar blood now infused into the family? Witness the Lincoln LS, the Jaguar S-type’s platform-mate, which reportedly is the first fun-to-drive Lincoln in years if not decades.

Ford has also retreated from its radical-design stance, at least with the Taurus. The 2000 model has abandoned the oval theme and gone back to more classic lines. The roofline and backlight have been “straightened out”, much to the benefit of rear headroom. The controls and switches are now conventionally and more logically laid out; it doesn’t make any styling. 

So much for the “experimental” Ford Taurus of 1998.368,327 certainly can’t be considered an abject failure, but Ford probably feels that the car can sell more. They can only do that by giving the customer what he really wants in a car—and isn’t that what this numbers game all comes down to?

Ovals, ovals, ovals...dash looks different but you'll get sick of it after a while.

Is that door handle designed for a human being or for Doctor Octopus?  Those terrible window switches date back to the early 1990s. 

Trunk space can swallow several suitcases, despite the intrusion from the rear wheel wells.  If you need more room than this, the similarly rounded Taurus Wagon should suffice.

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