The Ford Taurus is back and will be available across the country beginning next month.

Friday, company representatives brought the 2010 Taurus SHO model to Quad-Cities as part of Ford's national 100-city tour promoting the return of the model. The car was on display all day at Dahl Ford in Davenport.

Robert Parker, product communications director for Ford, talked about the comeback, sharing the new features offered on the car, including a V-6 engine with direct injection, Sony surround sound, a rear-view camera system, select shift automatic with paddle controls, MyKey and Blind Spot Information System.

He said the tour also is designed to promote the fact that Ford is back in the car business - so to speak - after being known best for trucks and SUVs for many years, he said.

"A lot of people thinking about cars were not thinking about Ford," he added.

With all the latest technology on the car, he said buyers normally would have to pay twice as much for a similar luxury vehicle.

"There is a team of people who go out to each location and meet with the consumers" to get the word out that "there is a new Taurus," he said.

He said Ford had discontinued the Taurus, replacing it with the Five Hundred nameplate. When Alan Mulally was named chief executive officer for Ford in 2006, Parker said the CEO immediately asked why Taurus was eliminated. That started the process of bringing it back.

Eventually, the Taurus model was returned in 2008. But Parker said the 2010 model is the first totally new designed and engineered Taurus model developed since 1996.