2008 Ford Taurus Limited

The 2008 Ford Taurus demonstrates that, although Ford builds good quality cars, it still can't come up with a logical product lineup. Ford ended production of its original Taurus model, then renamed the poorly selling 500 model as Taurus for the 2008 model year. Yet the 2008 Taurus is only slightly bigger and more powerful than the Ford Fusion, a lack of model differentiation that will make little sense to buyers.

As for the tech, the 2008 Ford Taurus gets a very advanced navigation system and voice command, a feature we haven't seen on a Ford until now. The stereo is over-amplified, a boon and a curse, and it handles all the usual digital formats. Unfortunately, Ford's new Sync system was not available at the time of this review, so we didn't get a chance to check that out.

Test the tech: UFO search
Changing the name from 500 to Taurus didn't change the looks: The Taurus is a big, beefy-looking sedan, which is probably its main distinction from the Ford Fusion. One of our staff members thought it looked like something the Men in Black would drive, so we went on a Men in Black-style mission, investigating UFO sightings. We had plenty to choose from, as there are hundreds of sightings reported every year at the Mutual UFO Network.

We selected five UFO sightings from Sausalito to Mountain View, and programmed those locations into the Taurus' navigation system. This navigation system is worthy of Men in Black technology, as it easily let us enter all our addresses, optimized their order for the most efficient travel time, and computed a route between them all.

Sighting date: 8/29/2007
Location: Sausalito
Description: Reporter monitoring a Webcam saw a "cigar-shaped and very bright" object. In successive frames of the Webcam, the object moved from left to right, then up close.
CNET report: We arrived at the Webcam location in the Ford Taurus, parked, and looked back across the Bay. After a few minutes, an object moved quickly in a downward motion. Its speed made it blurry in our photograph.

Sighting date: 5/23/2003
Location: Marin Headlands
Description: A reporter with self-described "extra sensory gifts" was sight-seeing in this highly scenic area, when he saw "an almost-circular object floating maybe a few football fields high over the ocean."
CNET report: We drove up to the Marin headlands, following the route guidance from the Ford Taurus navigation system. On the winding road leading up there, we noted the car's poor handling and understeer. When we parked at the sighting location, we noted an object similar to the one we had just seen in Sausalito moving downward. Again, our photograph only produced a blurry image.

Sighting date: 8/14/2007
Location: Lincoln Park, San Francisco
Description: Reporter was taking photos overlooking the ocean. On reviewing the photos later noticed a UFO in the pictures.
CNET report: We drove the Taurus across the Golden Gate Bridge and up to Lincoln Park in San Francisco. We appreciated the big windows and high roofline in the Taurus for the visibility it afforded on the very scenic bridge. At the location of the sighting, we noticed a brief flash in the sky, as if a strange object darted by, but got nothing distinct on a photograph.

Sighting date: 7/18/2004
Location: Emerald Lake, Redwood City
Description: Reporter noticed an object very high up that looked "cylindrical and cone-like on one end." The object seemed to be stationary, with a reflective, metallic body.
CNET report: On the cruise down to the sighting location, we listened to an MP3 CD on the Taurus' stereo. We were impressed with the amplification, which produced strong bass, but not so much with the speakers, which rattled at high volume. The navigation system flawlessly brought us through a series of small, winding streets to the sighting location. At the location there was a nice little lake, but we didn't see the reported UFO. We could, however, see planes landing at SFO.

Sighting date: 7/16/2003
Location: Moffett Field, Mountain View
Description: Reporter describes a "plunging orb over Moffett Field."
CNET report: Moffett Field hosts the NASA-Ames Research Center, where many UFO sightings have occurred. Many of these could be secret government projects. We enjoyed our trip down to the Research Center in the comfortable Taurus. Exploring the area, we found what we thought was an alien, but turned out to be an experimental space suit. We completed our investigation at the gift shop picking up a very cool die-cast model of the X-33 space plane.

In the cabin
Although our 2008 Ford Taurus Limited came with just about all the tech options, the one we are most looking forward to, Ford Sync, wasn't available yet. As it was, we were very impressed with the navigation system, voice command, and the stereo. These systems don't have the luxury look that you find in a BMW 535i, but they accomplish most of the same tasks.

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