Er... it's a Mondeo?  Like the one on my drive? (UK).....

why does Ford make a car again?

i own a 97 taurus it's one of the best cars ive driven so i'm glad to see them upgrading an already great car

I have a 05 taurus and I love it. I put alot of miles on my car and it runs great. But 26K is insane! I paid 9k for mine and it was 1 year old with 10K miles on it. Make the taurus SHO again.....that will be the REAL money maker.

J….your conclusions are ridiculous.  Ford and GM have been making cars for the last 20 years that their labor force allowed them to make.  Neither manufacturer could make small cars at a competitive price because their labor rates were 30-40% greater than their competitors Toyota and Honda.

www.manufacturing.net/News-GM-Vs-Toyota-Wages-And-Benefits.aspx

These higher costs forced both companies to focus on cars that had hire margins which enabled them to make a profit.  I’m sick and tired of hearing people that know nothing about manufacturing say Americans don’t know how to make the right marketing decisions.  Why is it that in non-union industries like software, consumer electronics and pharmaceutical American companies frequently are market leaders.  These management teams come from the same backgrounds and have the same education????  The reason is that in those industries labor does not wag the dog.  They can make business decisions based on true market conditions.  The last 30 years has seen every major industry with unions practically die.  America was great because it’s businesses could go to the world stage and compete with the best the world had to offer.  For the last 30 years GM and Ford have had to endure strikes, job banks (GM at one time had over 22,000 employees collecting a check every week who did nothing but hang out in a job bank) and constant labor unrest.  While Toyota and Honda had their governments take over their pension benefits and healthcare system making them more competitive.  The notion that somehow American companies are in capable of competing on a level playing field is pathetic!  as well as freaking unamerican!

J’s post goes in circles until he make the conclusion that he’s going to buy a better built German car????????????  Take a look at any survey of quality and you will see the German cars rate dead last. (with the exception of Porsche)  Check out the attached JD power overall quality rating…..The Chevy Mailbu rated higher than the Camry or Accord.  Oh and by the way in 2008 the Volkswagen (yes the company started by Adolf Hitler) built the worst vehicle of all the Touareg.  So J before you make you next post do a little research.

www.jdpower.com/.../midsize-car

J’s misinformation is the exact kind of crap that we need to eradicate from the American dialog.  Of course we should not buy poorly made products just because they are American made but we should have some pride and look for the next great American product and support it.  And most of all stop bad mouthing American made products.  There’s absolutely nothing good about having more brand loyalty in a Japanese product than an American product.  I travel throughout the world and I have never seen such negativity for domestically made products as we have in the US.  In India where they truly make terrible cars there is still a sense of national pride that Indians are consistently moving up in the world and making better and better products.  And they are happy to support these companies as they work their way up the quality ladder to become competitive with international companies.

Today you can buy a well built dependable American engineered, designed and manufactured car….Get out there and do IT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

boring boring boring. someone innovate. this car is not innovative and therefore will not be a hit.

c.pen.....the camry has to be the dullest car ever conceived by anyone and yet it sells.  The Accord looks so much like a BMW the first time I saw it I thought it was a commercial for a 525.  Yet both of those cars sell.  The Japanese haven't had a truly innovative product ever...yes their cars are well built but innovation?  since when?  Have you even seen the new Taurus?  I have...I went to the autoshow and saw one.  It's got the most interactive entertainment center on the market with voice activation for everything.  The ergonomics are every bit as stylish as other cars on the market and best of all it's designed and built by your neighbors!!!! Get your ass out there and buy one!  

Rob, and all you cheerleaders who act like buying anything but an "American" car is either an idiot or a traitor:  Many of the "evil" foreign cars you keep saying are putting Americans out of  work are providing many American JOBS.

Whether it's Nissans built in Tennessee and designed in California, Toyotas built in Georgetown KY or ... (the list goes on and on) -- the idea that buying these cars is destroying Americans is simply ludicrous.  Since a vast amount of AMERICAN labor and know-how goes into these cars - buying what suits the consumer best makes far more sense.

And Rob, quote JD Powers all you want, but INITIAL quality doesn't say much for the real reason people value cars - RELIABILITY.  Looking up how cars hold up after 7 to 10 years in Consumer Reports tells a much more meaningful story - and generally bodes very poorly for the "Big Three"'s cars overall.

Given the Taurus reliability history (add engines blowing up at 50,000 miles - owned by people who take VERY good care of their property to the list of inexcusable Taurus issues) and I'll take a BIG pass on a Taurus starting at $26,000 or even half that.

Roger....you obviously know nothing about manufacturing cars.  Less than 8% of the value of an automobile occurs during final assembly.  The fact that a few Japanese manufactures have put up assembly plans in the US to placate fools like yourself shows that it works.  Nissan, Toyota and Honda have minimal design and development facilities in the US.  They keep all the highest paying jobs and technology jobs at home in Japan.  It's a precondition of the huge subsidies that Japanese car companies are paid.  Your argument is still the same "whatever is best for MEEEEEEE" is the only thing that matters.  The founding fathers of this country and the men and women that built it took great pains to do the right thing for their country.  What people like you think of is only one thing...how can I make myself feel better and screw everyone else.  

I still don't suggest that anyone purchase substandard products just because their American, what I do advocate is shopping around and spending your money on some of the great products made by American companies.

You can come up with a few cases of problematic domestically made cars....consider that Toyota had to stop production of the Tundra due to a massive number of defects...they even made the general manager commit hari kari on TV in Japan for losing face from the huge number of defects (I was there it was hilarious)  The Tundra has trailed the Chevy and Ford trucks for years but people just like you buy them anyway because you think it's a status symbol buying a Toyota.  If it was strictly a question of quality and reliability Toyota would never sell a Truck in the US but they do.  

I have friends that have bought Nissans and Hondas that were riddled with problems...but non of that matters what matters is that their is a minimal difference between the quality and reliability of US and Japanese cars but a huge difference in the benefit to society and your children's future when you invest in the companies that employ us and provide the tax base for us to grow our country.  I don't expect someone like you to understand that philosophy you're so self absorbed that you could never see that the actions you take have consequences...my hope is that people on the fence about where they will spend their next $30K or $40K will at least take a long hard look before they make up their mind.

Ford is never going to survive!  Years and years of horrible design & quality is not going to win anybody over in this economy.  Take a hit for this generation of cars by pricing from 15k to 23k with 0% interest and a decent powertrain warranty to back up their advertised reliability.  More people might actually buy iif the product is actually good as word will get out thus breeding confidence back into the domestic market.

I hope it's a late April fools with their target price of 26k to 40k.  In that range, you have dozens of mid to high end luxuries to compete.  Can we say TL, G37, A4, 3 Series, C class, etc...