AEI Best Engineered Vehicle 2010-Ford Taurus

The readers and editors have selected the most significant vehicle of the year. Ford attacks premium sedan segment with all the technology it can muster.

Cars in the family sedan category might have once been better known for developing innovative new cupholder solutions than for their overall engineering superiority, but with Ford's move to edge the Taurus out of the rental-car/family-sedan segment and into the premium-sedan segment, the company loaded the new 2010 model with the kind of abundant technology that was once the exclusive purview of cars such as the Mercedes-Benz S-Class flagship.

Ford's initial triumph was in producing the Taurus as a 2010 model rather than a 2011, according to Chief Engineer Pete Reyes. “We are 12 months ahead of schedule,” he said. “It was to have been for the 2011 model year.”