Taurus

ATLANTA -- The Taurus is coming back. But in name only. The model that once brought gobs of revenue to the now-needy Ford Motor Co., and jobs to the now-desolate Hapeville, Ga., plant that assembled it, reportedly is being exhumed. An announcement is expected today at the Chicago Auto Show that Ford's poorly selling midsize sedan, the Five Hundred, will be renamed the Taurus. Automakers have dusted off old labels and reassigned them - like Chevrolet's Impala and Malibu. What's unusual is applying recycled monikers to existing models.

Wedding date: March 23, 2013 Her story: Ashley Cook, 30, grew up in Woodbridge, Va. She is a literary academic content liaison for Baltimore City Public Schools. Her mother, Sherry, is a facilities manager for a government contracting agency in Virginia. Her father, Patrick, passed away last year. His story: Phillip Plymouth, 29, grew up in Randallstown. He is an accountant for the American Postal Workers Union Health Plan. His mother, Bernice Brooks-Plymouth, is a psychiatric nurse at Johns Hopkins Hospital.

The name of Baltimore City purchasing agent Brent Lehmann was incorrectly spelled in yesterday's editions of The Sun.The Ford Motor Co. plans to send a team of technicians to Baltimore to resolve complaints that the city Police Department's $2 million fleet of Tauruses is troubled by failures.The announcement from the Detroit carmaker comes as police departments around the country are complaining that the Taurus, which Ford began selling as a squad car four years ago, is expensive to maintain and prone to breakdowns.

ATLANTA -- The Taurus is coming back. But in name only. The model that once brought gobs of revenue to the now-needy Ford Motor Co., and jobs to the now-desolate Hapeville, Ga., plant that assembled it, reportedly is being exhumed. An announcement is expected today at the Chicago Auto Show that Ford's poorly selling midsize sedan, the Five Hundred, will be renamed the Taurus. Automakers have dusted off old labels and reassigned them - like Chevrolet's Impala and Malibu. What's unusual is applying recycled monikers to existing models.

An agency that already has more than enough problems caused by bad management has created another one for itself. The Baltimore Police Department's purchase of those baby-blue Ford Taurus patrol cars two years ago, touted as a step into the future, has proved to be a $2 million fiasco. The mid-sized cars are unsuited to the rigors of patrol work and are breaking down far more often than the older, bigger Chevrolet Caprice cars which had been the department's mainstay.The idea was to get more for the money.

HERE'S SOMETHING that'll really make a person feel good about himself: The car I drive is considered so undesirable that even thieves don't want it. Yes, we're talking about the Ford Taurus station wagon - one of the big, lumbering beasts squats in my driveway, spreading an oil slick the size of Lake Erie, even as I type this. Anyway, according to a new report, the Taurus wagon ranks with the Buick LeSabre and Buick Park Avenue as the car most likely to leave thieves saying: "Nah, think I'll call it a night."

IN RECENT YEARS, Ford Motor Co. has spent billions -- $2.8 billion on the new Taurus alone -- to redesign its ever more expensive cars and light trucks. It appears to have spent too much.Ford is having difficulty recouping the investment. Its return on vehicle sales in the fourth quarter last year was zero as the company barely broke even. After dismissing complaints that its vehicles cost too much, Ford appears to be shifting gears and moving toward an aggressive cost-cutting program.The steps range from not painting the inside of ashtrays in its Explorer sport utility vehicle to the elimination of up to 6,000 product engineering jobs.

DEARBORN, Mich. -- In moves that reflect a broad slowdown in car demand and consumer tastes, Ford Motor Co. yesterday said it will halt production for one week of the best-selling Taurus and sister car Mercury Sable, and stop making four other models.The company said it will eliminate the Ford Thunderbird and Mercury Cougar, and take a $150 million second-quarter charge to close the assembly lines that make the cars at its Lorain, Ohio plant. The moves will eliminate up to 2,500 jobs, including 1,800 at the 40-year-old plant and as many as 700 at plants that supply parts for the cars.

CHICAGO -- It was Chicago's original "bean" - at least, according to a competitor. For five years it rode atop the passenger car market, the last domestically designed sedan to do so. The Ford Taurus was so popular that it took two plants to produce the cars, one in Chicago and the other in Georgia. Today marks the end of production for the Taurus, for which annual sales once topped 400,000. The last Taurus will roll off the assembly line in Atlanta, and sales this year will total fewer than 150,000.

When is the most popular car not the most popular car?When it's a Ford Taurus.Technically, Ford can boast in its advertising that Taurus is the No. 1-selling car in the United States. But when it comes to the cars that most individual motorists buy, Taurus is well down the list of the 10 best sellers, and there are rumors that the automaker is moving rapidly to redesign the car.As measured by registrations to individual buyers, the Honda Accord was the best-selling car during the 1996 model year, according to R. L. Polk & Co., a Detroit-based automotive research company.

If you're ever looking to go on a great adventure, one that'll get your heart pounding and stomach churning like nothing else, here's a suggestion: Have your car towed away in Baltimore. This happened to me recently after my 21-year-old daughter was involved in an accident downtown with one of my cars. She was OK, thank God. But the car, a 1996 Ford Taurus wagon, was not. So the car was towed away, and when I learned in a phone call that it was totaled, I did not exactly break down weeping.

CHICAGO -- It was Chicago's original "bean" - at least, according to a competitor. For five years it rode atop the passenger car market, the last domestically designed sedan to do so. The Ford Taurus was so popular that it took two plants to produce the cars, one in Chicago and the other in Georgia. Today marks the end of production for the Taurus, for which annual sales once topped 400,000. The last Taurus will roll off the assembly line in Atlanta, and sales this year will total fewer than 150,000.

DEARBORN, Mich. -- With the Ford Motor Co. struggling to end a financial crisis, William Clay Ford Jr. announced yesterday that he was giving up the chief executive's title after five years to Alan Mulally, a veteran executive at Boeing Co. Mulally, 61, is the highest-ranking executive in many years to join a Detroit automobile company from outside the industry. The move immediately brought to mind International Business Machines Corp.'s decision in 1993 to hire Louis V. Gerstner, an executive with RJR Nabisco, as its chief executive.

Driving an old car is like death by paper cuts, a slow, agonizing process that saps your will and bleeds your bank account dry with a thousand repair bills. Do I sound bitter? Look, I drive a 10-year-old Ford Taurus station wagon - one of the worst cars ever made. And the thing has 150,000 miles on it. I deserve to be bitter. If you want to know about it, the latest paper cut was delivered one evening last week, when I pulled into the driveway and turned the engine off. Except this time, the car kept running.

A 34-year-old Baltimore man was sentenced yesterday to more than 5 1/2 years in prison for possession of ammunition as a convicted felon. Andre Mills pleaded guilty to the charge in U.S. District Court in Baltimore. According to court papers in the case, police officers recovered boxes of assault-rifle ammunition inside Mills' car. They also found an AR-15 assault rifle at his clothing store in the 2400 block of Greenmount Ave., along with a Taurus 9 mm handgun, a Taurus .357 handgun, a loaded, 12-gauge "Maverick" shotgun and a loaded 9 mm Smith & Wesson handgun, the court papers said.

A Baltimore man was sentenced to 10 years in federal prison yesterday for possessing a stolen gun. City police said officers investigating a reported carjacking saw Gerard Merle Holt, 27, riding in a car at Edmondson Avenue and Pulaski Street in May 2004. They stopped the vehicle and discovered a loaded .357 caliber Taurus revolver in a holster on Holt's side. Holt did not have a permit to carry the handgun, which had been stolen Oct. 30, 2000, in Martinsburg, W.Va.

Police logEllicott City: 9400 block of Glen Ridge Drive: A blue 1989 four-door Ford Taurus was recovered Thursday.Pub Date: 1/13/97

POLICE LOG* Town Center: 10400 block of Little Patuxent Parkway: A magnetic antenna, leather driving gloves, eye glasses and a flashlight were stolen from a 1991 Ford Taurus Monday, police said.

For The Record The quiz DOING IT AGAIN -- The American League Most Valuable Player will be announced today. 2004 winner Vladimir Guerrero of the Angels could repeat. Name the last AL MVP to win in consecutive years. Answer below Moves Auto racing ROUSH RACING -- Suspended Kurt Busch, driver of NASCAR Nextel Cup series No. 97 Ford Taurus, for remainder of season. Basketball BUCKS -- Assigned F Ersan Ilyasova to D-League Tulsa. Quiz answer The White Sox's Frank Thomas in 1993 and 1994.

HERE'S SOMETHING that'll really make a person feel good about himself: The car I drive is considered so undesirable that even thieves don't want it. Yes, we're talking about the Ford Taurus station wagon - one of the big, lumbering beasts squats in my driveway, spreading an oil slick the size of Lake Erie, even as I type this. Anyway, according to a new report, the Taurus wagon ranks with the Buick LeSabre and Buick Park Avenue as the car most likely to leave thieves saying: "Nah, think I'll call it a night."