'97 Ford Taurus Sho VS. '97 Pontiac Grand Prix GTP

It'sthe fall of '88. Michael Dukakis is test-driving tanks. Fuzz-faced 17-year-old Jeff Gordon is racing USAC sprint cars. The Chevrolet Corvette ZR-1 prepares to seize the weighty crown of King of the Hill. Our spy photographers snap as-yet-unnamed models from Toyota's new luxury channel, Lexus. A sneak peek at the new "four-door Bronco II" blows us away-which, as the Explorer, it would later do to the car-buying public.

Also in the fall of that year, Ford unveils a hot-rod version of its top-selling Taurus. In honor of its silky, sophisticated, Yamaha-produced 3.0-liter/220-horsepower DOHC V-6, it's called the SHO, for Super High Output. Immediately, it's clear the SHO is not only a giant leap over the plain Taurus, but also a step above most cars-foreign and domestic-that lay claim to the title "sport sedan."

Back in '88, our test drivers recorded an 8.9-second 0-60-mph run with the Nissan Maxima SE, an 8.1 in a BMW M3, and couldn't break 7.2 seconds with every Chevrolet Camaro

IROC-Z. Yet, this four-door Ford sprinted 0-60 mph in eight seconds flat. The next year, a $25,000 Pontiac Grand Prix GTP coupe, powered by a McLaren Engineering-tweaked, turbocharged 3.2-liter/205-horse V-6, ran but 8.2 seconds 0-60 mph.

Speeding up our time machine, with a '91 Taurus SHO we saw a 7.7-second 0-60-mph run. Then, during testing for Motor Trend's 1992 Car of the Year, a second-generation SHO screamed 0-60 mph in just 6.8 seconds, a whopping 2.6 seconds quicker than its pushrod-powered sibling. Suspension mods and tire upgrades helped the SHO more than hold its own in the curves, too. The SHO was, clearly, the king of American sport sedans.That was then, this is now.

The new-generation '96 SHO only managed a 7.5-second 0-60-mph run and a 15.7-second, 88.6-mph quarter mile, despite a new V-8 with 0.4 liter more displacement and five more ponies than the '92 model. (A big reason for the difference: The performance-enhancing manual transmission of the '92 is no longer available.) Meanwhile, today's regular Taurus offers its own silky, sophisticated 3.0-liter DOHC four-valve V-6. This Duratec engine makes 200 horses, just 20 less than the original SHO engine, and, importantly, matches the first SHO's 200 pound-feet torque output. This no-longer-mundane Taurus is but 1.1 seconds slower 0-60 mph than the current SHO and only 0.7 second and 2.8 mph off in the quarter mile.

OK, so people don't buy sport sedans just for acceleration; they seek backroad-burning handling, too. Unfortunately, the new SHO doesn't deliver more than its '92 predecessor. Only in 60-0-mph braking distance (128 feet) does the new SHO beat its '92 sibling-and then by just seven feet. The new version tied the previous iteration's 0.80g skidpad mark and fell 0.4 mph slower in the slalom.

Although the new SHO doesn't jump as far ahead of the regular Taurus as it did in the past, the SHO might have held onto its title as America's top sport sedan if it weren't for Pontiac. For '97, Pontiac is resurrecting the spirit of its much-celebrated GTO musclecar, giving it a healthy dose of modern computer-aided enhancement, and implanting it in its new, sleekly styled, crisp-handling, thoughtfully appointed Grand Prix. Central to this tire-smoking front-drive sport sedan, called the GTP, is a supercharged version of the wonderful 3800 Series II V-6. This blown version of the 3.8-liter OHV engine peaks at 240 horses and an awesome 280 pound-feet of torque. The latter figure is a full 50 pound-feet more than what the SHO boasts and occurs at a more-useable 1600 rpm lower in the rev band. This means that while loping along at 2000 rpm, the GTP powerplant makes more torque than the SHO V-8 can manage at its peak.