The new engine and transmission in the 2008 Ford Taurus are a wonderful team. The engine is extremely quiet and smooth at idle, and uses a pendulum mounting system that effectively separates its motions and vibrations from the rest of the car. It sounds healthy, powerful and smooth at full throttle, makes the car plenty quick in acceleration and passing situations, and settles down to a nice background hum in sixth gear, as it should. At freeway speeds, the Taurus is very, very quiet inside.

We spent in inordinate amount of time at full-throttle with the new Taurus because it's so much fun to wind up in the lower gears; the old Five Hundred was just slow. We did a 0-100-0 run with an ABS panic brake stop at 100 mph, and we were suitably impressed with the way this car accelerates from rest and brakes from high speeds.

With traction control and optional AdvanceTrac electronic stability control, the computers take over whenever you try to do anything foolish, to keep the car flat and stable. The steering is accurate, with good feedback, and not overly assisted in normal and highway driving. The ride is soft and compliant, with some body roll in the fast corners and a noticeable upward pitch of the front end on hard acceleration.