It seems with Alan Mulally in charge, there are no sacred cows at Ford Motor Co. any longer. Or should I say sacred bulls, as in the Taurus. In an article in Business Week , author David Kiley hints that the bread-and-butter nameplate that was staple of Ford’s passenger car line for two decades could be ready for a comeback tour.

It seems with Alan Mulally in charge, there are no sacred cows at Ford Motor Co. any longer. Or should I say sacred bulls, as in the Taurus. In an article in Business Week , author David Kiley hints that the bread-and-butter nameplate that was staple of Ford’s passenger car line for two decades could be ready for a comeback tour.

The new CEO is quoted as saying “The Five Hundred should have been the new Taurus.” Indeed, Ford’s own marketing chief Barry Engle is quoted as saying, “I don’t know why we invest hundreds of millions of dollars in a name over 20 years and then walk away from it.” The tragic irony is that the original Taurus that came out in 1985 was the elusive “game-changer” that Detroit is so desperately chasing after today. At the time, most of the domestic offerings were slab-sided, chrome-laden carbureted beasts. Along came this radically sleek (for the day) sedan with fuel injection and clean lines inside and out. Even to this day, the original Taurus doesn’t look hopelessly dated. Unfortunately, subsequent investments into its midsize standard-bearer didn’t meet the same lofty standards set by the original.

So once it had cemented its position as the darling of the rental fleets, Ford eventually decided to pull the plug on the nameplate altogether, instead taking a two-model approach with the Fusion and Five Hundred. The Fusion name was a fluke itself, as Ford originally wanted to resurrect the “Futura” name, only to find out that they’d been beaten to the punch by Pep Boys in re-registering the trademark for a line of discount tires.

So the latest rumble is that the Five Hundred name (an obscure moniker only known to the most hard-core blue oval enthusiasts) may be replaced by Taurus once again. Yes, the Taurus name is damaged, but not unsalvageable. In fact, it would be a fitting tribute to Ford’s epic turnaround efforts to resurrect a “back from the ashes” Taurus, this time, with the goods, quality, and style to really face the CamCord twins head-on. Perhaps Ford should finally get it through its collective corporate head that the thing to do when one of your models is on a downward slide, is to re-invest in making the next one better than ever, rather than perpetually chasing coolness and hipness with new models and names that never catch on, and end up getting thrown on the scrapheap of brand names anyway for the next “name of the day.”

- Edward A. Sanchez