From the 2009 Chicago Auto Show, Cars.com's Kelsey Mays takes a look at the 2010 Ford Taurus SHO. It competes with the Dodge Charger and Pontiac G8.
Transcript
(upbeat music) Hi, I'm Kelsey Mays for cars.com. We're at the Chicago Auto Show. Checking out Ford's new Taurus SHO. This is a high performance version of Ford's flagships sedan, which was redesigned in time for the last months Detroit Auto Show.
That's covered separately in the cars.com video with editor Mike Hanley. The SHO is a sleeker performance car version of the Taurus, but it's steep price tag puts it into the territory of performance V-8 sedans, like the Pontiac G8 GXP and the Dodge Charger SRT8. You'll have to weigh the likely lack of performance compared to those cars against Fords superior cabin quality, and definitely superior gas mileage to see if the SHO works for you. SHO stands for Super High Performance. So we'll get right to the important stuff. Rather than use a V-8, Ford went with a 3.5 liter V-6. It's got twin turbos direct injection, and a lot of other tricks to make 365 horsepower. That's one for every day of the year, except on leap here. That's an estimated power rating, but it is a little bit under what the G8 GXP And the Charger SRTA have. Both of those have more than 400 horsepower, I guess that would be every day of the year on a planet that was really slow. It routes all that power through a six speed automatic transmission with paddle shifters and all wheel drive. All wheel drive is optional on the regular Taurus. That's pretty much it. You can't really see a lot of SHO cues on the outside. There's just a spoiler in the back, twin exhaust pipes, a few badges here and there, and a different looking grill. But overall, besides that, and the larger wheels 19 or 20 inch alloys are available. It's kind of hard to figure out that this is really a SHO car versus a regular Taurus. Ford's targeting highway gas mileage for the Taurus SHO to be about 25 miles per gallon. That's pretty good for a car with this kind of power. It's much better than those V-8 competitors. Not that far off irregular non turbo Taurus, which has about 263 horsepower. Throwing things like a more responsive steering system in a sport tuned suspension with the larger wheels. And this car should prove a lot more agile in performance situations than the regular Taurus. There's a performance package, in fact, that adds things like a tweaked final drive ratio for quicker acceleration and even more responsive steering. If you really want to get that performance edge out of your SHO. One of the cool thing that package includes is a different mode for the electronics stability system which Ford calls theirs AdvanceTrac. It basically dials back the threshold sport so that you can get a little bit of wheel spin, a little bit of fishtailing out if you want. That's kind of nice. It's something you usually don't see unless you get up to performance cars. Inside the cabin looks pretty reasonable, pretty close to the regular Tauruses. There's more metallic trims here. And there is obviously a show badge over on the passenger side. The seats have suede inserts in the center, but really they don't feel any more bolster than the regular Tauruses seats. So if you take this car on a windy road they might allow you to slip around a little bit too much. The Taurus SHO goes on sale this summer for $38,000 roughly, including the destination charge. That puts it right in the cross-hairs of those performance rivals. <v Narrator>For additional information on this car or any other, go to cars.com and our blog "Kicking Tires."
