There's been a lot of reshuffling within Ford's car lineup. This overcrowded company recently jinxed the Escort, Tracer, Contour, and Mystique to make room for the Focus, a car that combined the small size and price of the first two, the space of the next two and the sophistication missing from all. Now we have the Five Hundred, which comes close to the dying Taurus in size and price but has an interior gigantic enough to make even the larger, more expensive Crown Victoria redundant. Quite an encouraging pattern, yes?
As long as there are cops, there will be Crown Vics in the world, but few drivers need the benefits of that car's body-on-frame construction, rear-wheel-drive, or solid-axle suspension, and everyone could do without the drawbacks of said designs. The Five Hundred is the opposite of everything just mentioned - unit-body, front-drive, independent suspension - just like any modern car. For all intents and purposes, the Five Hundred is now Ford's great big car for the masses.
Making good use of its only profitable subsidiary, Ford looked to Volvo to lay down the groundwork for its new whopper, and the Five Hundred shares a lot with every Volvo whose name ends with a number higher than 50. Car cloning is a common pet peeve, but if Ford wants to take cars that sell upwards of $40,000 and kick off the line at $22,795, why complain?
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