6 cars with luxury feel and mass appeal

These days, you can find cars that have all the pleasures of expensive luxury cars but without the high-end price tag.

Check out the Ford Taurus SHO on AOL Autos

In an increasingly competitive market, carmakers are compelled to offer more features and nicer fittings on even their non-luxury models. In the process, many non-luxury cars are are available in versions so close to luxury cars that brands like Lexus and Mercedes-Benz are going to have a harder time justifying their extra cost.

Exhibit A is the 2010 Ford Taurus SHO. This top-of-the-line Taurus is equipped with a 365-horsepower twin-turbocharged V6 engine. As advertised, this EcoBoost engine, as Ford calls it, genuinely produces the feel of a big V8 without sacrificing fuel economy compared to the much weaker standard V6.

Beyond that, the all-wheel-drive Taurus SHO offers a handsome leather-lined interior with an appearance that rivals that of much more expensive cars. There's also a rich suite of available technologies like radar-based collision warning, blind spot detection and active cruise control.

A comparably equipped Lincoln MKS with ecoBoost, which shares the Taurus SHO's engine and basic engineering, will cost you about $10,000 more. The Lincoln's interior quality actually falls a bit short of the Taurus's and so does its spongier suspension. However, once you're done driving, the MKS can park itself quite nicely. That's one technology Ford doesn't offer on the Taurus, yet.