Chinese Taurus in Melbourne
Ford's large sedan won't ever go on sale here, but that doesn't mean you won't see it on Aussie roadsThe new Taurus was unveiled in Shanghai last month, and it's well known that Ford Australia had a hand in its development, but Broadmeadows has said very little on record about that directly.
Clearly Ford Australia is being uncharacteristically modest, making very little commotion about its involvement in the project.
But here's the proof of their handiwork – an engineering evaluation Taurus, replete with Chinese-market badging. Travelling in convoy with an Everest through South Melbourne, the Taurus – powered by a 2.7-litre EcoBoost V6 – was spotted by a carsales.com.au staff member late last week.
The four Chinese characters appearing on the lower right corner of the boot lid are romanised as 'Chang An Fu Te', which is the name of the joint venture in China, translated as 'Changan Ford'. This venture is headed up by former Ford Australia president, Marin Burela.
Ford Australia's work on the Chinese Taurus doesn't end with the car's debut at the Shanghai motor show last month, the local R&D people will continue working on the car for future running changes – some of which are probably being tested on this very car – months or even years down the track. Then there's the inevitable facelift/update and different variants (powertrain or possibly body styles).
Ford Australia has remained the 'homeroom' for development of the T6 (PX) Ranger, which has now spawned the Everest SUV on the same platform, and a facelift – both developments by Ford Australia from the original vehicle, which was also an Aussie project.
Being in the same time zone as much of Asia, Ford Australia is in a unique position to lead design projects for China, which is the fastest growing market in the world. As we've noted before, Ford Australia has a design annex located in China, and the Broadmeadows design facility is just one of three in the Ford world, the other two located in Dearborn (Michigan) and Cologne (Germany).
It's some kind of consolation that Australia will still be developing world-class cars after 2017, even if we don't build them any longer.
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