The interior follows the theme of the vehicles front end. Everything appears larger than life, and capable of just about anything. The steering wheel has a nice chunky feel to it, whilst at the same time feeling quite luxurious, and the gear selector, well, place your hand on that and you become the terminator all of a sudden. Honestly, it’s huge! I’d almost call it truck-like, but it’s not. It’s comfortable, whilst at the same time, there’s something quite brutish about it. You get the feeling that you could place both feet on the dash and yank on it using both hands and your arms would pull out of your shoulder sockets before the lever broke.

This solid, yet comfortable, feel goes through the entire interior. The button controls are on the larger scale, yet they fit your fingers perfectly, even with gloves on. The same can be said for the turn stalks. They might appear heavy enough to hang your coat on, yet they work with fingertip precision.

Honestly, if you’ve ever been in a car and thought, oh I don’t like the look of that, it looks flimsy, well then this is the car for you. It’s good solid quality, but nicely presented in a modern and very usable fashion.

The seating follows this pattern also by being rather chunky to look at, and yet, extremely comfortable even on long journeys, and the leatherwork reminds me of old English footwear. It might not be overly supple, but you get the impression that it will out last the life span of the vehicle, which after my last experience with hand made Italian shoes, suits me just fine. Of course, the seats in the Taurus SHO feature perforated Miko Suede inserts, which not only add a little up-market feel, but also help hold passengers firmly in place when the driver gets a little lead-foot happy.

That leads us perfectly into performance, and once again, Ford has pulled a rabbit out of the hat. Its new 365 hp EcoBoost 3.5L V6 is simply amazing. The torque this power plant produces actually makes you wonder why anyone would ever need a honking great V8. Not only that, but the benefit of Ford’s new EcoBoost system truly proves itself on this 4-door quasi-muscle car, as the new Taurus SHO boasts fuel economy figures of  12.3L/100 (23mpg) city – 8.0L/100 (35mpg) Hwy, and remember, those are for a vehicle which boasts AWD.

Oh yes, the new 2010 Ford Taurus SHO features AWD as standard.

I simply have to call the performance of the SHO impressive. However, those accustomed to the previous model are going to be in for a surprise when they drive this new version. It’s much more European in feel, although that’s not to say that it will compete with the likes of Audi or BMW, because it won’t. The new SHO is much tighter in feel than the previous generation, but it still doesn’t quite possess the sharp handling characteristics of the Euro sport sedans. It still feels like a rather heavy North American vehicle, but is that necessarily a bad thing? After all, we tend to cover further distances on this side of the pond, and the new Taurus SHO handles highways like a pro.

Of course, you all know there’s a “But” coming somewhere down this page. After all, my lead-in did mention how small problems can spoil big plans.

Well, there are actually two slight issues that I have with the new SHO. The first involves the suspension, and this has often troubled me with North American produced vehicles, especially the so-called performance cars. The way I see it, if you’re going to inject some European influence into a vehicle, then please, let that include some decent shock absorbers!

Now I don’t exactly know what happens in the product planning department of U.S. manufacturers, but I’m guessing that there’s one guy, possibly the nerdy fellow with the degree in accounting, who always suggests that the company save a little money by installing cheaper shock absorbers. That’s plum crazy, why spoil a great vehicle by cheaping out on four relatively small items? If the Taurus SHO was fitted with some premium shocks from one of the well-known Euro brands, the vehicle would handle much better, and then it possibly could compete with the likes of Audi.

My other slight stumbling block concerns the price. My tester started out with a base figure of $48,199. However, by the time a few items were added, it topped out at $51,149. Now I’m not going to deem the vehicle expensive, because I actually believe that you’re getting value for money with the SHO, but I think that a $50k price tag was perhaps a mistake for Ford. You see, that figure is a major level in pricing terms and people tend to label vehicles according to the sticker price, like, “Oh that’s a hundred thousand dollar car”. Bearing that in mind, $50k simply sounds like a lot of money, especially for a vehicle carrying a Taurus badge. In my mind, the company would have been better to have scaled back on a few unnecessary features (Not the shocks), and tried just a tad harder to keep the vehicle price down.

In conclusion, when all is said and done, the new Taurus SHO is still a very nice vehicle and I truly enjoyed my week driving it. But now for the big question... Would I purchase one myself or, recommend it to a friend? Well, to be fair, it’s not my type of vehicle. I don’t have a large family at home so I would go for something a little smaller. However, for my friends who do require a larger vehicle, yes I could see myself recommending the SHO. It’s a comfortable vehicle with a certain edge which you just don’t see in many N.A. vehicles today.