(first posted 12/21/2015)
In November, J.J. Abrams had this to say about how George Lucas conceptualized Star Wars:
Think about what he was able to stir up, the questions he was able to ask—exactly the right questions—the idea that he was able to create a world that clearly went so far beyond the boundaries of what we were seeing and hearing. This, to me, is one of the greatest things about Star Wars.
Is the Taurus the automotive equivalent to the first Star Wars film? In some ways, it was. The groundbreaking car wasn’t just revolutionary due to its styling or the unorthodox team created to develop it. The folks at Ford distilled the essence of more expensive vehicles to develop an experience never before encountered in the mid-size segment.
The creation of the Taurus isn’t exactly a new topic here at CC. We’ve covered how its design originated from European origins, and chronicled a broad history of its conception from start to finish. But the Taurus would not have made such a massive impact if not for the philosophical questions guiding the team creating the car. The decision to benchmark the future mid-size with cars far above its price range was just as important as making the car user friendly to middle america.
Sharp handling cars like the Mazda 626 were never far away during development of the Taurus.
Before the Taurus became a budget European car at American prices, Ford faced numerous issues as development of the Sigma (Ford’s official code name for the new car) took off. Its current product lineup was stale and severely out of date. Competitors from at home and abroad had beaten Ford in developing front wheel drive vehicles, and the executives in charge of turning the company around – namely Chairman Phil Caldwell and Don Peterson – were well aware of the situation, although lower level executives were still unsure that a car driven by the front wheels was a good idea. The first victory for Project Sigma was won by Lewis Veraldi, he insisted from the very beginning that the team develop a car with a consistent vision, which meant the debate had to end with the car as a front wheel drive vehicle. Veraldi, vice president of car development, previously oversaw the development of the first generation Fiesta, and knew front wheel drive was the way to go for Ford’s next project.
Project Sigma eventually became the Taurus because Veraldi wanted a moniker that sounded powerful in hopes it wouldn’t get cancelled by the higher ups, who recently pulled the plug on a number of projects, notably the mini/max program. The anxieties about the existential status of the work assigned to Veraldi and company dissipated rather quickly however, and it became clear that while Don Peterson excelled at managing the more mundane aspects of product development, Caldwell focused more on big picture ideas while the Taurus was being conceptualized.
One of the establishing mantras imposed on Veraldi was relatively simple. Why should a customer buy a Taurus?
Team Taurus took this question to the absolute extreme. From front to back, top to bottom, everyone behind the project wanted to tackle the less obvious qualities that could potentially set a car apart from its competition, and the minutiae of details customers could see, touch, and feel, all in one package.
Veraldi also felt the Taurus could accomplish its mission by being best in class. This meant going beyond in every way possible. The interior was going to feature user-friendly controls and a modern design. But the soul of the car – the ride, handling, and overall refinement – also had to be top notch if the bold experiment was to succeed.
BMW’s 528e was one source of inspiration.
Sources of inspiration were varied, but one thing was clear: the cars Team Taurus wanted to emulate in ride and handling all hailed from Europe. All of the executives involved in the project had previously been on assignment in the old world in some capacity, so they had firsthand experience with the market and the qualities within each competitors vehicles that set them apart from the American and Japanese manufacturers. Being best-in-class also meant being world class, and the team set about creating a car appealing to global tastes.
The Toyota Cressida: The Japanese BMW, also evaluated by Team Taurus.
We can all look back and name dozens of models made prior to the mid 1980’s that characterized what Americans had come to expect from their cars. The cushy, floating suspension that ignored bumps and precise steering simultaneously. Team Taurus knew these characteristics could not make it into their car, and they also knew what it took to get a car with a sharp ride and crisp handling. They just had to make sure customers would understand that as well.
Team Taurus was quite taken with Opel’s Senator.
Lew Veraldi devised an experiment to gauge how the buying public perceived ride quality by literally swapping the suspensions of a Ford Crown Victoria and Opel Senator. The testers thought one car would win out over the other; either they’d take the large, American sedan with tight handling, or the smaller car with a softer approach to road feel. Turns out that neither were popular. The team conducting the research did not expect such an outcome, but were not totally taken aback by the results. Their conclusion boiled down to this: taking a large car and fitting it with the suspension of a smaller one destroys its appeal because fundamentally, the styling doesn’t match up with the driving dynamics of the vehicle being evaluated. A car with an athletic stance should look the part. Essentially, the team needed to create a soul for the Taurus and have a consistent vision for every aspect of the car, or the project would end in failure. A sportier vehicle should be more adventurous on the inside and out.
By now, its apparent the individuals behind making the Taurus a reality rather than a pipe dream were asking the right questions. But the crux of where the Taurus would impact the market wasn’t entirely clear until they arrived at a definitive consensus on its sizing. Taking stock of the current crop of sedans, the team saw an opening: baby boomers starting families that were familiar with Japanese cars and wanted that experience in a larger vehicle.
Ford already had something like that in its stable, but the LTD was quite large: 196.5 inches in length. That’s almost five inches longer than a current generation Ford Fusion.
Photo by Mr. choppers, wikipedia commons
The Taurus needed to slim down, but stay larger than the competition. The A-Body Celebrity debuted in 1981, providing the team with a solid template for sizing the Taurus properly. Although their overall length and height were nearly identical, the Taurus bested the Celebrity with a longer wheelbase (106 inches vs. 104.8) and width (70.8 vs. 69.2). For a family car, those extra measurements go a long way towards a superior ride and a more roomy interior.
The third generation Honda Accord.
It’s easy to see why Ford felt there was an opening they could exploit; The second and third generation Accord were over a foot shorter in length, making them more competitive with the Tempo, at least in size.
If the Taurus had a spirit animal, it was the Audi 5000 (known abroad as the 100). The German sedan nearly matched the Taurus in wheelbase (105.6) and was only slightly wider (at 71.4) and taller (71.4).
It makes sense then, that the Audi 5000 and Honda Accord appeared in Car And Driver’s 10 Best in 1986. When the Taurus arrived in 1986, it was the perfect distillation of the two vehicles – offering the nimbleness of the Accord in a bigger package, with the overall refinement and luxury of the Audi 5000S.
If you think that sounds like I’m exaggerating, I understand. However, the car mags really felt this was the case once they were able to evaluate the Taurus next to the cars Ford kept on hand during its development. Car And Driver’s April 1986 road test demonstrated just how special the Taurus was upon its introduction. The new 3.0 liter V-6 developed for the Taurus didn’t contain any technological marvels, but it was competitive, even with cars outside its class.
The folks at Car And Driver heaped praise upon the Taurus rarely found within its pages. Some interior bits lacked the sophistication found in the German cars, but otherwise the reviewers found comparing it directly against the BMW 528e and Audi 5000S fair game. To paraphrase Vice President Joe Biden, that was a big freakin’ deal.
By baking German design into the Taurus from the beginning, the team at Ford created a car seemingly from another dimension. In reality, Lew Veraldi and company took the best characteristics of European cars and translated their aura into a modern front-wheel drive family car aimed directly at middle America.
George Lucas emulated Kurosawa samurai films and World War II dog-fighting flicks, and the end result gave us a memorable universe filled with things like the Jedi and the Death Star trench run. What Team Taurus did for the automobile industry was no less significant.
Related Reading:
Curbside Classic: 1986 Ford Taurus
Curbside Analysis: 1986 Ford Taurus
A very special thanks to Eric Forman and George Neill, who provided me with the Car And Driver scans for the article. I didn’t use all of them, but their inspiration helped write the article. Thanks guys!
For additional information regarding the development of the Taurus, Eric Taub’s Taurus: The Making Of The Car That Saved Ford is essential reading.
![wikipedia commons](http://"1986 Chevrolet Celebrity 2.5" by Mr.choppers - Own work. Licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0 via Commons - https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:1986_Chevrolet_Celebrity_2.5.jpg#/media/File:1986_Chevrolet_Celebrity_2.5.jpg){kind=link}
Don Peterson was possibly the best American auto exec of that era and definitely the most underrated. I’ve known plenty of longtime Ford employees who said the company did its best work with him at the helm.
As far as the original Taurus/DN5, unless your were old enough to drive back when it came out new you really couldn’t appreciate what a step forward it was. The basic chassis was so good that it took the idiot restyling of the Dead Flounder Taurus to set it back.
I appreciate how solid the chassis is, even for extreme drivings. I always like to pick an empty parking lot and drive the car until it loses control, and Taurus is the best front wheel drive sedan I tried like that. ( Acura TSX didn’t lose control though, because it holds the ground pretty tight and it would be too dangerous pushing off the limit. H-Body LeSabre didn’t lose control neither because the body flex is horrible enough. ’93 Chrysler New Yorker Fifth Avenue had the extreme understeer even on very slippery surfaces, and it never lost control in the way I wanted. Fiat 500 Abarth is extremely nimble and I can’t even push it off the limit by making sharp turns over 60mph )
Probably early Taurus chassis is even as good as or better than the late W-Body with that much reinforcement, and by compare the investment on H-Body wasn’t so effective.
I’ve had and driven tons of H-body cars, and I never noticed any body flex, and by drive, I mean drove the living piss out of some of them. Between a Taurus and an H-body, I’d take the H, though they were a slightly more expensive car at the time.
I had a LeSabre and drove plenty of Taurus variants and would prefer the Buick due to the better powertrains and slightly bigger interior. I think the structural deficiencies of the H-Car are more a matter of people reading about the shortcomings then noticing it afterwards.
From what I recall Taurus really raised the game on interior trim though, brought near-Honda levels of trim and switch gear to the domestics.
Yes, after reading the articles and taking courses in vehicle dynamics, I can’t get over hearing and feeling the body-flex of the LeSabre every time I drive. I only drive that car for the winter, so it isn’t too bad. However, I just can’t imagine how the car would handle without strut bar.
Chrysler F-Body has less body flex by compare though, but probably it was covered when rear suspension doesn’t have anti-roll bar.
I don’t know about “body flex,” but my parents bought a brand-new 1988 Oldsmobile Delta 88 Royale sedan, and it didn’t feel terribly solid. The drivetrain was great, but the rest of the car felt as though you could take it apart with your bare hands.
They traded it for a 1992 Eighty-Eight Royale, and that car was a massive improvement in every way.
Thinking back, I have trouble thinking of anyone else making a FWD Unibody car of that size as well Ford did with the Taurus. Maybe the Renault 25 (Which contributed a lot to the eventual LH).
If you drove an H in decent shape, they didn’t flex like you suggest, at least to my memory. I drove a 1989 Bonneville from 1999 to 2003, so from the end of my junior year of high school to just before I finished undergrad. Believe me, I flogged the everloving @#%$ out of that car, and it handled it in fine form! The trip from university to parents’ was a three-hour affair, presuming a reasonable approximation of adherence to speed limits (i.e. keeping it within 10 mph of the posted limit). I discovered that if I left at midnight or 1 a.m., that drive became shorter. Personal best was two hours instead of three.
From the Bonneville I went to a 1995 LeSabre, on which I put 37,000 miles in 18 months. That car was also good for running at speeds I couldn’t honestly enumerate for lack of numbers on the speedometer. I got caught up in one of Michigan’s annual multi-car winter pileups, and I walked away from that crash without a scratch.
If those H-Body cars were flexy like you suggest, I imagine I would be dead now for how I drove ’em back then.
All that said, I can’t offer any honest comparison to the first or second Taurus.
H-Body has quite better structure in terms of the crashworthiness, than many other cars though. I heard stories about a head-on collision between late ’80s LeSabre and fox Mustang, and Mustang really fell apart. ( but in this particular article, Buick wasn’t mentioned much http://www.mlive.com/news/saginaw/index.ssf/2013/05/teen_initially_charged_with_dr.html )
But every time when I accelerate, I can’t help noticing the squeaky sound from B-pillar ( after I started to notice it ) I can’t imagine how it would handle without factory strut bar.
Being from England, I’ve always admired the Taurus from afar, as opportunities to see one don’t come up very often. Very crisp and modern styling, with enough detailing to not appear bland; the only disappointment from my perspective was the workmanlike interior.
The thing that’s always puzzled me is why Ford Europe decided to go down the route of the Granada / Scorpio? In terms of design, yes, it’s similar to the Sierra (mid-to-large for Europe, rear-drive, hatchback, based on outgoing mechanicals), and it was a well-regarded car in its early days, but if Europe had aligned more with the Taurus, I feel it could have developed a more competitive vehicle over the longer term, on a platform more aligned with ‘European’ thinking.
It may really have come down to money. Ford’s finance people were really adamantly opposed to FWD and in particular the cost of retooling their plants for FWD. FoE was probably also aware that the Granada was in a very touchy position in terms of price; its major selling point against the 5-Series and E-Class was that you could get a better-equipped car for the same money, so anything that would have eroded that marginal price advantage would have been a problem. (If that was the concern, Rover’s subsequent experience with the 800 suggests that it was well-founded.)
I think the Granada advantage also lay that the companies that often bought them for the employees might have an easier time getting a mainstream brand approved verses luxury.
Had it gone FWD with the Taurus, it would be curious how close they would be. No way they would have used the Vulcan or the 2.5 HSC. Maybe a CVH 1.9 base. But I can’t think of a ohc fwd V6 in it’s 1986 parts bin.
The Scorpio was built on Sierra underpinnings, it wasn’t more than a Sierra that had been widened and lengthened. But it hided that very well, and it did a very good job at its intended mission. I have no idea how a fwd Scorpio would’ve been reveived by its audience. And I have no idea what would’ve been more cost effective, making the Scorpio out of the Sierra, or adapting the Taurus for a European market, or perhaps giving it its own European body. Who can tell?
Thanks Edward for this in depth writeup. I am not a fan of benchmarking, but in this case it was a success in the marketplace. For Ford to go FWD on the mainsteam sedan 4-5 years after GM and Chrysler meant they realized they had to offer something new. And they did.
The C/D test yielded better results than I remembered. I recalled Vulcans being more in the 10.5 second range at a lighter weight. This one did seem to have a short axle ratio. A head to head of an LX and a Pontiac 6000STE might have been definitive on who was making a better Senator(Opel). If the STE was one with a five speed it might have still won.
You’re observations seem to coincide with my recollections. Vulcan-powered Tauri were quite anemic.
That reinforces my view that the one thing the Taurus & other domestics of the time still fell short in was small engines: Japan beat Detroit beat hands down in this area, esp. 4-cylinders. Even after Honda introduced V6s in later Accords, most reviewers remarked there was little reason to upgrade from the four because it was that good. One could never say that of a domestic.
The A-series in my ’88 Accord was wonderful & never gave me any trouble after 150Kmi.
You are absolutely right!
I saw a Motorweek review of this car and it said the following:
0-60, Vulcan V6, 13.5
I-4 MT5, 12.4 (!)
40-55 mph in 6.0 seconds, so a bit slow due to AX4S or AX4N transmission. Go to 2:47 or so.
I’ve seen C/D have top speed of these around 117 (1990) and 114 (1986). Must be gearing, as this one had a 3.47 ratio. Good point–I wonder if taller ones (3.33 or taller) would be able to hit 120-125.
0-60 in 9.8-11 sounds accurate. We had a ’90 GL and I timed it at 11.6 with a stopwatch!
When I met my wife, she owned an MT5 (4 cylinder, 5 speed manual). Nothing about the car stood out, but for a large american car it wasn’t awful to drive, unlike most of its contemporaries. Acceleration was anything but spectacular and handling was acceptable but uninspiring. Still, there was something likeable about it.
The 4-cylinder Taurus was a dud. I used to implore potential buyers to get the V6 or nothing. Sadly, some people ignored my advice and got stuck with a gutless,zero resale piece of crap.
The existence of the MT5 as an above base model indicates that they may have more in store in four cylinder Taurus. I hope this unusual model earns an article of it’s own during Taurus week.
“Acceleration was anything but spectacular and handling was acceptable but uninspiring. Still, there was something likeable about it.”
That is what is nearly always overlooked. Do people like driving it. I’ve positive impressions about the first Taurus’, but limited with only minutes in the drivers seat. But people that owned them, liked them. Really liked them. Screw the numbers, acceleration, skidpan, whatever. If people like driving them, they’ll sell.
Since the CA Accord (the pictured third-generation version) debuted less than six months before the Taurus, I think any relationship between them was coincidental; the Accord was introduced in June 1985 in Japan, by which time the Taurus would have been in or near pre-production. The Accord paralleled the Taurus in some respects, since it represented a comparable leap for Honda, but that was about it.
As a minor point, I think calling the Cressida/Mark II/Chaser/Cresta of that vintage a Japanese BMW is a real stretch. Toyota did later try to offer sporty versions of the Mark II, but the X60 and X70 generations (1981 and 1985, respectively) were more like a Japanese Buick Electra. They were RWD and the upscale versions had inline sixes and semi-trailing arm rear suspension, but that was pretty much where any Bavarian parallel ends.
Also, while I’m nitpicking, “spirit animal” is a term specific to a number of First Nations belief systems, whose adherents find its use by non-natives as a generic concept very offensive. I’ve made that mistake in the past and now avoid it because it makes people justifiably cross.
Ok they knew about the Senator those at least in Holden form handle well far better than the wet sponge 626, for great FWD handling PSA would have been the place to be looking not mediocre Japanese offerings with RWD or FWD as Toyota was widely criticised here for its poor chassis tuning as were the other Japanese efforts.
I was thinking the same thing about the Cressida. It always seemed the most traditionally American of Toyota’s offerings, very much a Japanese Buick. Also priced like one, a concept which survives until today in its direct successor Avalon.
The Cressida (a.k.a. Mark II/Chaser/Cresta) actually continued separately, just not in the U.S.; I think its latest iteration, called Mark X, is now sold only in Japan and the Chaser and Cresta have expired. It’s still RWD. The Avalon was a separate model line that was likely inspired by the success of the Taurus and cars like the GM H-bodies, which suggested that the U.S. market still had an appetite for bigger bread-and-butter FWD family sedans.
Mark X are popular over here ex JDM, the Avalon never took off in this part of the world.
My Mom bought a new one in 1988 and gave it to me in 1997 when she bought a new Sable. It only had around 20k miles on it when I got it, and it was one of the worst cars I ever had. I got to know my local mechanic far better than I had when I was driving beaters, I think I had to replace the water pump twice not to mention the air conditioning constantly failing. The rear axle finally broke just 3 years after I started driving it. A friend had a 1988 Honda Accord and driving that made me hate it that much more. I guess you could say I’m not a fan.
I was in my mid 20s when the Taurus hit. Over the next 5 years, I would become familiar with many of the cars in and around it’s segment like the Accord, the Camry and the Fox body LTD/Marquis.
I knew at least 6 people who bought an early Taurus or Sable, and it was a very impressive car when new, especially in the higher trim levels. I vividly remember driving an early Sable and finding it a far superior experience to my mother’s 85 Crown Victoria.
I think that the car’s weakness was that it did not age as well as the Fox cars or the GM A bodies. Was it under-engineered for durability? Or the victim of cost-cutting accountants?
My mother’s ’93 Taurus wagon certainly didn’t age well. It was the closest thing to a new car she ever bought at 3 years old and performed admirably for the first few years.
By the time I was driving it in ’99 the tide had turned. Stupid little things breaking became bigger things. Granted it led a rough life and my mom wasn’t big on maintenance. I recall replacing a subframe bolt that had rotted off on the side of the road. My brother was driving and said the car just decided to pull a hard right turn onto the shoulder as the subframe fell out on one side. I think it was ultimately killed by a blown head gasket at about 8 years old and no more than 220 000 kms. Not terrible durability but still disappointing.
Not sure whether to blame the engineers or accountants, but somebody was cutting corners.
At my urging, Dad bought a new 1986 Mercury Sable to replace the Mercury Topaz that he hated. He got himself an LS wagon and immediately fell in love with the car. I got to drive the Sable a fair bit and was impressed with the ride/handling combination. It gave Dad good service and was replaced with a 1990 Sable wagon that was equally as good. I still think that the full-width light-bar Sables were dramatic and great-looking.
I admit it now – I was a doubter.
When the Taurus first came out, I thought it would never fly – that the aero look was a fad, and would ultimately prove to be annoying. While I thought the Audi 5000 was neat and admired its groundbreaking concept, I didn’t think the same concept would work on a mainstream sedan.
Within a year or two though, I changed my mind. After my first ride or two in a Taurus, I admitted that I liked them (my uncle bought an ’87 Taurus, which helped form my opinion), and at some point I realized that the LTD, which overlapped Taurus production in 1986, looked immediately geriatric.
But while I quickly warmed up to the sedan, it took me much longer to like the wagon. My father said the wagon’s rear looked like a cockroach; and I think that sums it up well. Something about those tall, pointy tail lights just didn’t work well. By the 2nd generation, though, even the wagons grew on my a bit.
I’m looking forward to more of Taurus week articles.
While I wasn’t driving cars when these came out, I’ve driven several after and I’m trying to think how many of them made me think “BMW”…….
Zero.
I found the Ford Taurus more attractive than anything else on the American market at the time, except for the larger, rear-wheel drive LTD.
The Fox-body LTD of that era was a real sleeper. Really a shame Ford didn’t go whole-hog and offer the 5.0L/T5 Mustang GT powertrain there (I am aware that they offered the Auto Trans with the 5.0L on the LTD).
I agree. I don’t get why they didn’t continue the Fox-bodied LTD. I thought it looked more attractive than the Taurus. My favourite look had a more aerodynamic look to it than the standard LTD that was also available at the time.
Another parallel to the Star Wars franchise, both it and the Taurus turned to shit in the late 90’s……
Lucas couldn’t get rights to the “Flash Gordon” serials, so he came up with “Star Wars” instead. De Laurentiis, who was blocking Lucas, got around to “Flash Gordon” shortly after, in very camp style with Queen soundtrack.
The Death Star Trench was inspired by the British flick “633 Squadron;” its theme can be heard outside Disney’s “Soarin’ over California” ride in Anaheim.
I’m not sure the comparison with Star Wars is all that good. I’m one of those who thinks the success of Star Wars went a long way to ruining the movie industry. Suddenly, studios were only interested in making incredibly expensive blockbusters, obsessed only with pulling in big bucks, with little or no redeeming values. The truth is, Star Wars isn’t all that great of a movie, and movies after Star Wars, in general, took a serious downturn.
Of course, it is true that the Taurus’ success pretty much killed any kind of decent angular styling with everything, save Cadillac, going with the ‘melted jellybean in the rain’ look. And Cadillac’s ‘edge’ styling is a far cry from the great-looking cars from the sixties. So, maybe there is a bit of a corollary.
Frankly, the original Taurus was a much better car than Star Wars was a movie.
Its like 2 good movies and 4 shit ones…..
The Prequels aren’t bad.
I am a longtime Taurus owner (the REAL Taurus, not the SUV-with-a-sedan-body) from a 1986 Taurus L wagon to a 2004 GL wagon (the only sedan among all of them being our “extra” car, a 1994 GL). They have proven to be versatile, reliable and durable. Knocking on wood, as they’re all of substantial age, they have given less trouble than either my sister’s and brother’s Hondas (Accords and Odyssey). What I remember most about our first Taurus was how DIFFERENT it was from everything else domestic. It instantly obsoleted every other American sedan or wagon. The pent-up demand for such a car was obvious.
Ford had production quotas then, for the various Taurus trim lines. Our 1986 wagon was a low-line L model but it was equipped upline with everything that was on the GL. That had put it within allotment for a short delivery time to the dealer, for whom the GLs were on long backorder.
One thing about the C&D test report I must take issue with, though. The only way a standard 1986 Taurus with the Vulcan V6 (never mind the anemic Four) ever broke a ten-second 0-60 was downhill. 12 seconds was more typical in stock setup, but one could advance the timing at the distributor in the Vulcan V6. Perhaps theirs was “massaged?” Not til the Essex 3.8L V6 did the Taurus have that kind of acceleration, and only barely…but the transmission and head gasket issues with that engine made the Essex a bad choice.
0-60 in 9.8 seems fast, as they also hit 9.7 in a ’90 test for the 10Best comparo that year. And top speeds were around 114-117 even with 3.47 gears. Imagine with taller gears–they could hit 125 even if it took 13 seconds to 60. 🙂
The ’87 Camry V6 did 9.8 and about 125 mph top speed, kicking out 153 hp out of 2.5 liters.
The SHO gave them Fox-levels of performance: 0-60 in 6.6 (fastest was in ’90) to 7.3, 136-145 mph top speed, depending on gearing. This is as good as a Fox and IROC, and only slightly slower than a C4!!!!
The website Autos of Interest posted some earlier drawings and clay models of the 1986 Ford Taurus.
http://autosofinterest.com/2012/09/21/design-notes-1986-ford-taurus/2/
http://autosofinterest.com/2012/09/21/design-notes-1986-ford-taurus/
Some of these early studies look quite French to me. A lot of the Renault/Eagle Medalion and the 405. The actual Taurus looks larger, or at least photographs that way. Thanks for posting this.
Very fascinating design history! Those styling exercises do bring up another question though. Many of those seem to sport the grille-less nose that became a hallmark of the Taurus’ design. However, I’ve seen photos of pre-production Taurii from 1985 that sport a slotted grille instead of the blank panel. I even think one from after the public reveal had it. I wonder what the issue there was? Fear that the American public might not accept a family car without a traditional grille?
That’s what I’ve always heard. A slotted grill did make production on the police package models though
My understanding the slots on the front of the police package Taurus were there to provide better air intake.
It’s different from the pre-production black grille which had horizontal bars like Euro Fords of the time.
There almost was a base black grill cheapie Taurus. There were some pictures of it.
Odd that the Taurus cruise pictured above has the fancier wheelcovers, I remember the Taurus police package having steelies with caps.
Never really knew anyone who owned a Taurus. The Robocop car is what I think of when I see a 1st gen car. I have seen a few fishermen using the bass like 2nd gen cars. They obviously get the connection. I always thought the full width front light on the Mercury Sable version was kind of an interesting feature. Audi 5000 copy came to mind the first time I saw this car when it came out. Never drove or rode in one so don’t really have an impression on that aspect.
My best friend’s grandparents had a silver 1986 Taurus GL wagon that they bought brand new and loved. In 1991 they were moving to Florida from R.I. and needed some stuff brought down in the wagon. I offered to drive about half way down with my friend and then fly back from Washington D.C., which we did. Well, that wagon was loaded with stuff and had well over 100k miles on it. Because I wasn’t too familiar with the Taurus/Sable and because of the mileage on their particular car I wasn’t expecting much, but I was overly very impressed by it. Aside from a little lack of power from the 3.0 V-6, that wagon rode and handled great. It got good gas mileage and was very comfortable. From that point on I always believed the Taurus and Sable were far ahead of their time and to this day I still do.
I never understand people’s love for the Taurus. Any Taurus I ever drove certainly didn’t seem anything special. The 4 cylinder was a total dog and should have never been sold. One of the local taxi companies had a whole fleet of them, and they spent more time being repaired than they did on the road period . Other posters noting that the cars didn’t age well, that is a massive understatement! They were never nearly as good a car as say, a Mazda 626, and in my opinion many people bought them simply because they were not Japanese.
Ford let this design wither on the vine. My wife’s 2006 Taurus was a total piece of crap that didn’t even last 100000 kilometers. The Taurus never drove as well as its Japanese competition itwas certainly never nearly as reliable.
I think that because of when it was introduced the Taurus was far better and much more advanced compared to most of its competition. The many folks that I know that had them loved them. Were they perfect? No, but like GM with their A-bodies, Ford didn’t do very much to improve on the Taurus over the years and it simply became another lackluster car. Lets face it, they sold over a million of them by 1989 so something had to be good about them. If Ford had done what Honda still does with their Accord or Toyota with their Camry – improving them with each generation and having a tried and true five year cycle run – the Taurus would still be as popular as ever.
They did just that from Gen-1 to Gen-2. The second-gen Taurus refreshed the styling (every body panel was different but for the roof) and fixed a lot of the customer concerns about the first-gen cars. But, Ford kept the excellent platform and the powertrains (shame they didn’t rework the 3.8 to make it more reliable) and overall just made the car better.
And it worked. Gen-2 was the best-selling car in the United States.
Trouble was the Bubble Taurus, Gen-3. The team on Gen-3 decided they wanted that version to revolutionize the car market the way the first one did. So, in came a shocking new design language. While they kept the Vulcan, which was a durable engine, they added the Duratech (also a good engine and simultaneously removed the troublesome 3.8) and attached it to a transmission with thin cheap spline gears that the engine would simply shred to bits.
From there, sales crashed hard, and Gen-4 was just trying to clean up Gen-3’s mistakes but without money to do a lot of modernizing. By Gen-4, the competition had taken up the slack and then some, and Ford didn’t have the resources or attention span (thanks Jac Nasser!) to give the Taurus the treatment it needed.
Yes, Nasser certainly cannibalized the sound legacy Caldwell/Peterson left him.
As much stick as Roger Smith, Lutz and Wagonner get, Jacques Nasser was every bit as bad.
Golf clap
In 2007 in the Lower Mezzanine of Ford World Headquarters (there’s the lobby, then near the elevators were stairs up and down to two office levels), there was someone who still had the Detroit Free Press front page from the day Jac Nasser was canned. Until the first couple waves of early retirement buyouts took out a lot of the old-timers in 2007/2008, I would hear Jac Nasser’s name and how terrible he was with surprising regularity.
That newspaper on the front of the cube wall, though, will always stick out in my mind. Six years on, and they were still so happy Nasser was gone they kept the newspaper hung up!
Let’s just start off by saying everyone is entitled to their opinion. That’s why we have this site, correct?
I really do not think the styling of the second gen is better than the original. To me it went backwards instead of forwards. The interior was cheapened. Plus what about all of the rental cars that these second gen Tauruses became? Honda was in second place with the Accord but those cars all went to individuals, not rental car companies.
As far as the ovoid Taurus is concerned, it wasn’t accepted because it was simply too strange and radical. Even the dashboard with its weird rounded controls was hard to accept. After the mess Ford made with the 3rd gen it was even more downhill from there. A car that could have always been a step ahead of the competition became an also-ran.
Agreed G1 Taurus’s were better.
+1
I remember the Taurus causing quite the buzz at the Atlanta new car show the year it and the Sable debuted. A good friend’s Dad was a hardcore Mercedes driver, and came *that close* to buying a Sable. Don’t know why he decided against, though.
We wrangled a tour of the Hapeville assembly plant as soon as we could, and were suitably impressed.
I commented on the K-car article a couple days ago that my Mom bought a Citation to replace a fuel hog ’71 Catalina. The Citation ended up costing her probably more in repairs than she would have paid in gas for the Pontiac.
When it developed a more critical issue, she traded it on a used second-gen Taurus, which seemed to be a much better screwed-together car, at least until the 3.8 started having issues. I only drove it a few times, and don’t really have any “jump out” memories, other than it seemed somewhat more reliable than the Citation.
The Taurus would eventually be replaced with a used third-gen Nissan Sentra in the late 1990s, which went to my brother when Mom passed in 2010. He’s still driving it.
I had a terrible time connecting with the idea of buying what to me seemed like fragile and sometimes iffy front wheel drive cars. After a time of driving old (but solid) cars in the ’80s, I decided to get something modern again and purchased an ’87 Mercury Grand Marquis. I knew the Taurus was out there, and very relevent in the market, but I just couldn’t get myself interested.
Despite the Grand Marquis, I managed to marry and reproduce. That led me to finally seek a demographic appropriate brand new family sedan in 1995. The ovoid Taurus was out and starting its long run of making the Taurus irrelevant. Chrysler was in its hot streak, and the new LH platform sedans offered some tangible benefits in terms of power, ride, handling and interior room – in some very stylish packages.
The 1995 Taurus was very competent on its test drive, but the Chrysler Concorde I bought was a much more appealing package.
I missed the entire Taurus revolution. I see the original iterations in a much more positive light then I used to, and occasionally see a decent example on the road. There are some impressive features and packaging in those early cars.
“Despite the Grand Marquis, I managed to marry and reproduce.”
Hah! My grandmother’s ’86 GM was my “date night” car, and we used it as our ‘getaway car’ when my wife and I married.
Very amusing story, and one that I can relate to. About a decade later (already married & reproduced), I was car-shopping and comparing a 500/Taurus with the Crown Victoria. I chose the Crown Vic (one of the last years they were available to the general public) over the nice, but more fragile front-driver.
I still have the Crown Vic., which I love. But like you, we later bought a car more typical of our demographics, which in our case was a Honda Odyssey.
I know the Taurus was a pretty good car, but whenever I saw one, I always expected Steve McQueen to show up to fight it off…
If you took that Opel Senator grille and crafted it onto the 1st gen Taurus you could sell that car today, the styling is quite timeless. Only the aero nose would look dated. By contrast the rest of the Senator is all sharp creases which would look out of place today.
Great article Ed. It seems like this was the most complete approach to development of an American car, a rare case of aiming to make the best car possible with fewer compromises driven by price.
Can’t say the same about the follow-up cars though, although the shortcomings of the 3rd gen are more a case of tone-deaf design style rather than shortcuts.
This almost was to be the basis of the Falcon in Australia for 1988.What Ford should have done was get it right from the word go.The EA is a dog next to these.
The EA was pulled from the oven only partly baked it was awful but subsequent models improved and by the time the fish faced Taurus made it down under it had become a poor choice compared to a Falcon, 90s Falcons are still on NZ roads in small numbers but the Taurus has vanished including numerous wagons imported from Japan, of course there was very little parts backup for them.
I want to restore one of these cars really badly. I’m looking for a Medium Canyon Red 1986 Ford Taurus LX Wagon fully optioned. If anybody finds one for sale let me know!
I find it interesting how they tried to recreate the Taurus in the early 2000s they way they created the original. Again, they looked to Germany for inspiration, using the bones of a fine European car; a Volvo.
However, due to some stupid management decisions, they ended up with a puffy, underpowered Passat with a CVT. And a meaningless name (Five Hundred) created by clueless marketing types who insisted on an “F” alliteration. I think it should have been Galaxie.
My parents had an 87 Taurus LX (first car my father ever owned with an automatic transmission) and later traded it for a 93 Taurus GL. The LX had weak air conditioning but very comfortable interior. I inherited the GL when my mother died in 2001 and kept it until April 2004 with about 88,000 miles. The GL’s Vulcan was sluggish and had about 19 mpg in the city and 29 on the highway. It was fairly reliable but not refined. Since then, I have had two Panthers which I love.
“The Taurus needed to slim down (from the LTD) but stay larger than the competition.” I just learned something. The Taurus “tweener” sizing was on purpose. It was designed to be a FWD family sedan. A new smaller “full size” sedan. Toyota eventually developed their own version of the Taurus with a separate line of cars- Avalon. Crucially, Ford didn’t have a mid size sedan to compete directly with the Accord/Camry until the Mondeo/Contour arrived many years later (and a dollar short in terms of brand equity). Instead, Ford might have just kept the first generation’s dimensions (188 L/70.8W) throughout the 3 generation run, as that size quickly became the new mid size. A smaller- albeit ovoid- ’96 Taurus could have done very well against the now larger Accord/Camry.
My Father had 3 of these (actually all Mercury Sables) in a row. After my sister totalled his ’86 Dodge 600, he got the first one…all of them leased (back in early ’89 it seemed like the thing to do, though he never kept cars too long, that’s part of the reason he owned 3 in a short period…he never leased any other cars before or since).
They were OK, but I thought they were imitating the Audi 5000 (before the unanticipated acceleration debacle) partly with the flush windows (OK, I guess Mazda 626 also had them around the same time) I guess I was suspicious when in 1978 Ford also seemed to “copy” the side mirrors integrated in the A pillar, though I guess they were more aerodynamic, much like the flush windows). I didn’t care for the “big blob” styling, even worse when he bought the ’96 Ovoid (maybe Mercury wasn’t as bad as Ford that year, but not far behind). I think I preferred the K car, which was older design, back when they thought they had to square cars to make them space efficient. He had each one such a short time that I can’t comment on their reliability. I think he liked them OK, but in 2001 jumped ship and bought the first of 2 Impalas he was to own in a row…I kind of prompted him to look at the Impala, and the dealership pulled a “lost his keys” on his Sable, and he kept the Impala during a long weekend, and it worked; he traded the Sable the next Tuesday. They even took a picture of the two of us (maybe a sucker memento?) but it is the only picture I have right after he bought a car (and he bought quite a few, especially compared to me). This is going to sound bad, but I have it (business card size) slipped into the frame of the dresser mirror in my bedroom along with the mass cards of the funerals I’ve attended in the last decade (lots more than previous ones)..but it is a nice memory looking at it.
Though my Father actually owned a ’65 Olds F85 he bought new, I think of the Sables as my Father’s Oldsmobile in a way.