CHARLOTTESVILLE, VA: Forty-some years ago when Ford first tried to sell a sedan that had a lot of safety features, it was a 5-alarm failure.
Now that we baby boomers are finally starting to admit the possibility of our own mortality (actually, we have a team of specialists looking into it), Ford is offering us a sedan with a lot of safety features and hoping it will be a 5-star success.
Those stars would of course be the number that will probably be bestowed on the 2000 Taurus by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) once it studies the remains of some sedans and wagons it's crashing.
Five stars for the driver and five stars for the front passenger, which is the highest rating NHTSA has to give and one that's not to be derided. According to NHTSA, if you're sitting in a front seat with a 4-star rating in a vehicle of roughly the same size (a key consideration), the chances of you sustaining a serious injury in a frontal crash are twice as great as they are if you're in a 5-star spot. It progresses mathematically from there so that a 1-star spot is five times as dangerous as a position with a 5-star rating.
Such statistics are always more gamble than guarantee, of course, but they're pretty much the gold standard right now.
Ford achieves this worthy standard through experience and attention to detail, but let's let the safety details slide for a few minutes while we consider the rest of the car. If you're lucky, after all, you will not get to watch the long line of safety items spring and burst and tighten and inflate to your defense.
Driving various units of the 2000 Taurus around the hilly terrain two hours south of Washington, I had to struggle to get past the sense of dullness that formed up around the car during all that earnest talk about safety.
Ford did make some effort to imbue its new Taurus with a sense of excitement, pointing out the expanded power numbers from the carryover V-6s that pull the car.
But the company had previously noted that power and performance were way, way, way down the list of priorities prospective Taurus buyers had outlined. Mike Zevalkink, the vehicle line director for Ford's large and luxury vehicle center, reported that they wanted safety, safety, safety and more safety, then some more safety, then interior roominess, comfort, trunk space, powertrain performance, ride and handling, and quality and durability.
To answer the call for more performance, the 12-valve Vulcan 3-liter is now rated at 155 horsepower @ 4900 rpm and 185 pound-feet of torque @ 3950 rpm, improvements of 10 and 15, respectively, and the 24-valve Duratec 3-liter now delivers 200 horsepower @ 5650 rpm and 200 pound-feet of torque @ 4400 rpm, increases of 15 and 15.
Ford notes as how customers should perceive an increased performance feel with these changes, but quickly adds that they should also make for a quieter engine, quiet being a first cousin of safety, I imagine.
As it happens, both of these engines do a fairly good job of hauling this mid-size model around, though the 12-valve Vulcan can be always be heard working more to do its job, especially in the heavier wagon. If you drive it for mileage rather than muscle, however, the Vulcan will suffice.
There is more spunk in the Duratec (though at low speeds it's not overwhelming) and that engine should be a serious consideration if you're one of the quarter of all Canadian buyers who go for the wagon over the sedan. Not only is a wagon heavier to begin with, after all, presumably you're going to use that extra serving of space to carry something, which usually equates to extra weight.
Both engines are attached to a 4-speed automatic transmission with overdrive, but the Duratec engine gets a final drive ratio that's slightly more biased toward launch.
Neither engine is going to make you feared at stoplights, understand, but Ford assumes few Taurus buyers want to be.
What Taurus buyers do want, along with all of the features mentioned above, is value for the money, and this is where the 2000 model really quickens the pulse of prospective buyers.
The lowest manufacturer's suggested retail price (MSRP) for a 2000 Taurus is $24,495, which gets you an LX sedan with the 12-valve Vulcan engine. This model will appeal to only one in 20 buyers, Ford projects, since it doesn't come with all of the equipment buyers in this segment want, though it does get air and remote keyless entry.
Slightly more than half of all Taurus buyers will select the SE version of the sedan, since Ford has packaged and priced it to appeal to them. The sticker here is $25,595 and that gives you a bunch of features such as ABS and the equipment from the convenience group (power driver's seat, heated mirrors, a light package) and the sport group (5-spoke wheels and a spoiler) that used to be optional on a comparable model next year.
A bunch more people will pop for the SE Comfort sedan, which pretty much speaks for itself and stickers for $26,495.
On the wagon side, there is no LX package, so the offerings start with the SE trim at $26,495 and go up to the SE Comfort at $27,695.
Every model of Taurus gets the 12-valve Vulcan as its standard engine and every model of Taurus can be equipped with the 24-valve Duratec if the buyer is willing to part with an extra $1,495, which seems pricey. But if you're not totally Zen-like in your approach to the world of traffic (i.e. if your relative position in the traffic jam of life is a concern for you) you should consider this option.
The biggest change to Taurus for 2000 is undoubtedly the styling of the sedan, since Ford took a huge step back from the ovaloid (as a friend accidentally but correctly coined it) shape to something more traditional. It's certainly less striking, it will offend fewer people, and it allows for more interior space but particularly headroom.
The best thing about the new Taurus are moveable pedals, which bring the brake and accelerator forward almost 10 cm and should make it easier for shorter people to get a more comfortable and, it must be noted, safer position away from the steering wheel. This is optional on SE trims with a power driver's seat for $166 and should be a wild success.
Interior fixtures have also been dialed back to suit more middle-brow tastes, which means the loss of the triple-cool ovaloid instrument panel in favor of something more stolid and rhectoloid. Pity.
Ford makes a lot of noise about the fact that the new Taurus makes less noise than the previous Taurus did, which is exactly what they said about the last model and will count a lot with a lot of people.
Bringing back the central them of Taurus for the final chapter, it's important to note that Ford says it has an overall design that's provides "enhanced performance during crash tests and real-world accidents."
Beyond that, it also has most of the current safety toys (the surprising absences here are head air bags and the active head-restraints or seats which reduce whiplash injuries) and the system has been wired together so it reads the position of the front passengers and the reality of the crash and adjusts the deployment of bags and seatbelt tensioning accordingly. This is very clever and very welcome.
All of these safety systems will undoubtedly make the 2000 Taurus attractive to people looking for a new mid-size sedan or wagon, but it is all of the car's other considerable charms that will make them glad they bought it.
