For the better part of two decades, the Ford Taurus was regarded as the ‘everyman’s car’ in America. It’s popularity back in the day was unrivaled, and during the late 80’s, the Taurus was the top-selling vehicle in the US, capable of selling around 500,000 units a year.

But somewhere along the way, the Taurus lost its appeal to Americans and after years of extracting whatever appeal it had left, the car was officially canned in 2007. Ford even toyed with the idea of dropping the ‘Taurus’ name altogether and renaming it as the Ford Five Hundred.

It wasn’t until recently when Alan R. Mulally, Ford’s new chief executive, made an about-face and decided to bring back the Taurus, despite its growing reputation as a run-of-the-mill vehicle. Apparently, Mulally figured that the Taurus still had a noticeable brand recall among Americans.

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That being said, the Taurus is set to make its return in showrooms sometime next week. This time, though, Ford is being prudent with the brand. Rather than mass producing the Taurus, Ford is taking the conservative approach by building lesser models so it can gauge the public response and determine whether the car is ready for a rebirth.

In any case, the new Taurus is set to go on sale with a base price of $26,000, which incidentally, is higher than other car brands it is competing with.