Marathon Pundit: New Ford Taurus: A car Obama should be looking at

Saturday, June 23, 2007

New Ford Taurus: A car Obama should be looking at

Last month Barack Obama scolded Detroit automakers about not making enough hybrid cars--while he and his family were driving a gas guzzling Chrysler Hemi. They sold that car once the media reported Obama's hypcocrisy.

Here's what Ford Motors chairman Bill Ford, Jr. said last month about Obama's comments:

I would love to invite him to our Chicago assembly plant in his state and see where we make a vehicle that's more efficient than the one he's currently driving.

Then there is the reintroduced Ford Taurus, which is manufactured at that plant located in the area Obama worked while a community organizer in the 1980s.

Obama has never visited the site. But the Chicago plant may soon be producing Ford Taurus hybrid cars

From today's Detroit Free Press:

Beyond the more than 500 engineering changes the sedan received in its makeover, the Taurus will get a massive marketing campaign to promote the vehicle's top safety ratings. And even more improvements are in Taurus' future, possibly including a hybrid, (Alan) Mulally told the Free Press.

"We are looking at a hybrid," the former Boeing Co. executive said after leading a celebration rally with hundreds of workers, other Ford executives and labor leaders, including UAW Vice President Bob King.

"Whether we have a hybrid available ... is something we haven't yet decided," he said, "because we have a lot of technologies on internal combustion engines that are also very appealing, so we'll decide that as we go along."