USDMFTWs Car Reviewing | Deader than a Doornail

Psst, ill beat you around the track with my smart car <.<

I really should make another car just to compete it with everyone else, but it would not be included in actual scoring.

Also still looking for a writer, got ALOT of cars submitted today and the hyper car challenge, if someone would like to help out, message me.

I am kinda confused, are you accepting new submissions?

Yes, im still accepting normal car review submissions, hypercar challenge submissions were reserved a few weeks ago, so the entries for that are closed.

Delays are expected for normal car reviews as the hyper car challenge is now running and a car has already been submitted.

New review will rollout in the next view days with a small announcement and something extra.

To those who are in the hypercar challenge, or those looking to submit a car for review, please include a screenshot of the market tab(after all factory settings). The games export function does not include the factory information, nor is it easy to include that in a zip when you have alot of cars.

Submissions for the hypercar challenge end in 2 days.

List of the 5 people accepted| Car submitted (Y/N)

  1. stickmaster62 Y
  2. strop Y
  3. KairaWolf N
  4. Speeddemon Y
  5. Squidhead Y

Hello! I offered to help USDMFTW out with the reviews a little while back, and he agreed to let me become a part of the team after I showed him some of my work. He gives me the scores, and I write the review to suit them, so if you have a beef with the scores your car received youā€™ll have to contact him, not me. With that being said, I present my first review as part of the USDMFTW team.

2015 Sanguine Volare Taurus

A modern, more refined take on Americaā€™s higher end automotive offerings of years long past.

Drivability
[8/10]

The Taurus is remarkably easy to drive for a sports car of its caliber. While its massive 7.3 liter V8 pumps out an impressive 630 horsepower, the car ships with plenty of electronic aids, a massive amount of rubber on the front and rear wheels (285mm up front and 325mm in the rear to be precise), and an all wheel drive system to make managing all of that power a breeze. To top it all off, the Taurus comes with automatically locking differentials to further facilitate getting off the line in a hurry. Wheel spin is nearly absent in this car, which is amazing considering how much power it sends to its wheels. Of course, most folks who buy this car are going to need to turn it as well, and the Taurus corners just as controllably as it accelerates. There are no surprises here, just a gradual onset of understeer when pushed to the limits of its grip, and with a stopping distance of just under 113 feet from 62 miles per hour it doesnā€™t get much easier to keep the Taurus out of walls, other peopleā€™s cars, wildlife, etc.Yes, you can find more forgiving cars out there than the Taurus, but there arenā€™t many cars out there with equal or better performance that drive as easily as this thing does.

Performance and Sportiness
[7/10]

When I brought the Taurus to the track Iā€™ll admit I wasnā€™t expecting much. The thing is HUGE, and it weighs over 5000 pounds! The spec sheet Sanguine Volare provided me with made promises that I felt had no chance of being kept. I was wrong, though. While the Taurus is still a boat, itā€™s a pretty sporty boat. The car is a demon off the line, dealing with 0-62 miles per hour in just 3.8 seconds. Its seven speed, dual clutch sequential demon shifts with the best of them, no doubt playing a big role in how quickly this behemoth moves. Our professional driver posted a quarter mile time of 12.06 seconds with a trap speed of 115 miles per hour in the Taurus. Thatā€™s not a bad time by any means.

Handling
[4/10]

Our driver also took the Taurus for a spin on the skid pad where it managed to pull 0.99gs at 31.2 miles per hour on the 20 meter circle and 0.96gs at 108.7 miles per hour on the 250 meter circle. Just a hair under a full g from something so massive is nothing to sneeze at. Last but not least, our driver clocked in a 2:19.71 around the Automation Test Track in the Taurus we were provided. You may not see the Taurus challenging a hypercar any time soon, but it is definitely not slow.

We wrapped up our day at the track in the Taurus by getting some thoughts from our pro driver on the way the Taurus handles. He didnā€™t have very nice things to say about the car. While it had the potential to go quite quickly it didnā€™t do so very willingly according to him. He complained that the understeer became a handful when trying to push the car to the limit, especially during high speed cornering. While he understands not every car is designed to push the boundaries of performance, he felt that if one was going to call the Taurus a sports car it should have more front-end grip. He also remarked that while the car handled better than expected for its size, it was still very hard to ignore just how big and heavy the car was. Along with those grievances our driver informed us that braking performance diminished quite noticeably when trying to slow down from the kinds of speeds seen more often on the track than on the road. He wrapped up his thoughts on the car by saying that some stickier tires couldā€™ve done it some good and that even the sportiest suspension setting available in a Taurus still erred a bit too much on the side of being smooth and comfortable.

Comfort
[7/10]

The Taurus features active springs and dampers that are adjusted by selecting from a variety of presets from within the cabin. For the purposes of judging this category, I, of course, selected the ā€œcomfortā€ preset. The suspension geometry itself contributes to providing a comfortable ride as well with its multi-link set up in the rear and MacPherson struts up front. I took the Taurus around town on this setting, and I wasnā€™t displeased by any means. The suspension can get VERY stiff if you want it that way, but the Taurus can do comfortable city driving and handle speed bumps quite well, too. In addition, the brakes arenā€™t very aggressive and well suited to traffic use. Inside the Taurus you get four quite comfortable leather seats with very precise electrical adjustability, easy to read gauges, a quite impressive sound system with satellite radio built in and one of the more easy to use infotainment systems Iā€™ve come across. The car does everything comfort-wise very well, but not exceptionally well. Itā€™s not a top of the line luxury car, but it is still quite comfortable. There is one pretty significant issue, however. This thing is LOUD. VERY LOUD. I can confidently say this car fails to satisfy noise regulations in quite a few countries. The Taurusā€™ pretty solid noise insulation helps things out a little bit for the Taurusā€™ passengers, but this car isnā€™t for you if you are bothered by engine noise. The upside is there isnā€™t much to hear inside the cabin besides engine noise and whatever is going on inside. The tire compound the Taurus ships with is geared towards performance; however, it keeps road noise down to a more than acceptable level coupled with the carā€™s cabin insulation.

Interior Quality
[7/10]

Like I said before, there is quite a bit of leather in this car; although, not all of it is real. There is still some plastic to be found, but itā€™s of the higher end variety and feels pretty sturdy. Everything is fairly well put together and during my short time with the vehicle I didnā€™t have any gripes with the interior, but there isnā€™t anything magical about this vehicleā€™s interior. It does its job well, but itā€™s below the elite upper echelons of luxury vehicles. Not saying thatā€™s a bad thing, but there are better interiors out there for people with the money and the desire for them.

Safety
[9/10]

This thing is a tank. Sanguine Volare gave us full permission to torture test the Taurus to the best of our abilities to see just how tough it is with our own eyes. It performed remarkably well. There isnā€™t any innovative safety technology of note on the vehicle, itā€™s all pretty standard stuff for the era, but over 5000 pounds of steel and aluminum between you and the world outside the cabin makes a monumental difference. The carā€™s aforementioned impressive stopping distance helps things out tremendously in this department as well.

Cost
[9/10]

With a market price of around $33,000 this car is a tremendous bargain. You get exceptional performance, comfort, safety, a fair bit of passenger and cargo space all for that price. Sanguine Volare did a fantastic job at making this thing as affordable as they could, but once a Taurus is off the dealership lot and in your garage you will find that while its a bargain to obtain, running it will eat into your pockets a bit. The Taurus gets about 14.5 miles for each gallon of fuel, which means youā€™ll be spending plenty of time with your Taurus at the pump if you drive it regularly.

Reliability
[5/10]

As part of our stress test, we put together a team of drivers to take turns running this thing hard around a track continuously for days on end and saw how it compared to other cars we have reviewed. This car sits firmly in the middle of the road in this department. There is A LOT of tech on board, which of course just means more things that can break. We found that the V8-250 that the Taurus is equipped with is perhaps being pushed just a hair too hard given its internals. All of that being said, it isnā€™t extraordinarily unreliable, and a few simple tweaks here and there could go a long way to making this car more reliable.

Aesthetics
[No Score for this]

Now, there is one pretty significant issue with this car Iā€™ve been glossing over for a while, but now itā€™s finally time to talk about it. This car looks like it was released about half a century late. Now, thereā€™s nothing wrong with that. Itā€™s a pretty good looking car for the era it pays homage to, but I feel like a car like this is going to struggle on the market with those looks. Itā€™s got a pretty simple, clean design that doesnā€™t do much, but what it does do it does pretty well. While I donā€™t mind the design, and I actually think itā€™s kind of cool to see a modern car company try something like this, I feel that this carā€™s exterior will push it into a pretty small niche on the market.

Overall
[7/10]

The Sanguine Volare Taurus is an exceptional performance car with plenty of luxury to boot. While it certainly has its weak areas, I feel that this car is a sound compromise between just about everything you could want in a car at a very reasonable price. I just hope that its retro appearance doesnā€™t put too many people off of such a great car.

3 Likes

I would say as far as the style of reviews are to be kept consistent you have done an excellent job. Just one thing though: could you reformat the post without the word wrapping that was probably present in the word processor you used to type the review initially? It breaks the lines in the wrong place in my current device and makes it harder to read!

1 Like

I tweaked the formatting a bit, thanks for the feedback.

I like the writtingā€¦ but as far as the carā€¦

I know I know, beauty is in the eye of the beholderā€¦ but the looks and the concept of the car seems weird to me :confused: not that is bad, itā€™s my opinion only.

2 Likes

lolol where does this gif come from!?

@strop Itā€™s Mr Horse from Ren & Stimpy.

Thanks. Oh man that takes me back a long wayā€¦

Hey guys, first part of the hypercar review will be out sometime monday. Expect a normal review by friday.

Hey , is the car review is still open to the public? Because iā€™d like to send you a car from the 70ā€™s if thatā€™s cool.

Yea, its still open, im pretty backed up on reviews, so it may be quite awhile before before your car gets reviewed.

Thatā€™s great and i donā€™t care if the car review is late but still iā€™d love to have my car reviewed and will sending my cars in anytime from now.

No problem, look forward to your car.

Hypercar challenge information:
An issue was found with a car that needs to be resolved before the first part can be posted, so its delayed until i get the updated car. Sorry for the delays.

That said, the first part is 90% completed and will be posted when i get the updated car.