Ford Taurus continued is still alive in the Chinese market despite its ceased production in the United States. The car model gets a mid-cycle facelift before its exhibit at the Shanghai Auto Show next month.
The car model was the first launch as three and a half years ago. On a new photo released by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, the car went through minor styling updates. Two variants of the Taurus were shown in the photos from the ministry. One of the two cars is a white upper-range Titanium grade car while the new variant is a new black range-topping Vignale.
The updates in the front of the car included new headlights with chrome detailing around the lenses, a reshaped chrome grille, and a restyled bumper featuring fog lights, and chrome trim at the lower end. In its rear end, it adopts new LED taillights, a reshaped trunk lid, and a sportier bumper featuring black trim and wide horizontal tailpipes. Buyers of cars have three choices of alloy wheel designs.
The facelifted Taurus runs through four-cylinder EcoBoost engines which ditched the previous 325hp 2.7-liter EcoBoost V6 twin-turbo unit. Buyers get two choices for the engine which includes a 1.5-liter EcoBoost and a 2.0-liter EcoBoost producing 245 horsepower.
The Taurus will be manufactured by the Changan-Ford join venture at the Hangzhou plant that has a maximum capacity of building 250,000 vehicles every year.
This year, Ford announced that they will end their manufacture of the car brand in its Chicago Assembly plant which marked the end of its United States production. In 2006, Ford also canceled its production of the Taurus before reviving it in 2008 with an all-new set of cars.
In recent years, the sales of the mid-size sedan fell in the United States. It is believed that this might be the last time that the brand will be out in the market unless the company decides to reinvent the brand into a crossover, or the passenger car market starts recovering at some point in the future.
Mark LaNeve, Ford vice president, United States marketing, sales, and service, said that Taurus broke new ground at its start and they're thankful for its role in the company's portfolio. He added that those same kinds of innovations will continue for today's customers with Ford Explorer and the rest of our lineup. Recently, the company announced that they invested $1 billion into the Chicago Assembly and Chicago Stamping plants for building the all-new Explorer and Police Interceptor Utility.
