The 2011 Taurus SHO

As many of my readers know, I am a supporter of common sense green technology. Any time you can make something smarter, that consumes less but gives equal or more, I am all for it. That is why I am all for anyone that wants to buy a Prius or Volt. More power to you. For me, though, I like a little kick to what I drive. That is one of the reasons why I love the new Taurus SHO.

This car just screams kick ass in so many ways it is not even funny. For a middle class dude like me, this is the perfect combination of sports and luxury. Yes, it is pricey so I will be buying a used one when it comes time. That said, I just love this car.

MCJ, why did you bring up green tech when you talked about this? you may be asking. Let me tell you. Rather than go with the V8 like previous Taurus SHO's, Ford got smart and installed what they are calling their Eco-Boost engine. For non gear heads I will keep this simple. Using two turbos that kick in at different stages of performance, the car is able to generate 365 horsepower using a 3.5 liter V6. If you want to read the details on this, go HERE. Basically, you can get a really fast sports car that gets 18 MPG in the city and about 27 MPG on the highway. Not bad. This is the type of smart engineering that I feel a lot of middle class people are looking for in a sports and/or luxury car. Speed and luxury done smartly.

The other nice thing, even though it is a sports sedan, it adds a touch of luxury but there is still room enough for a car seat or two and trunk space that a mafioso would be proud to have if you get my drift (if you don't, email me and I will explain it to you).

I like that Ford has made a car that can compare with the Audi or the Lexus as far as space, speed and styling but is American made. In fact, it is produced about 6 hours away from STL in Chicago.

As it is, Ford is on many people's list of buycotts due to them not taking a bailout from the government and being smart about restructuring before the economy went in the tank. By the way, I do not work or am in no way related to Ford or the Ford Motor Company.

This car is not cheap in any way, shape or form. A new on will run you about 36K, but in a year or two, you should be able to find a used one for 25- 30K. So, if you are middle age, middle class but want a touch of luxury and a touch of kick ass, this may be the car for you to look into. If I get the chance to drive one for a bit, longer than with a dealer salesmen, I will follow up to this post.

In the meantime, if you are interested, here are some cool videos to watch that show just how kicken this bad boy is.

So, what do you think?