For what was once the best selling car in the land, the first generation Taurus has become mighty scarce. Apparently, these are not turning out to be long-lived even here in Curbsidelandia, unlike all of the Mercedes W123 and 124s around, never mind all the old Volvos and Toyotas. This one brings back vivid memories, as it’s exactly like the one my dad bought, the only car he ever bought based on my recommendation. Which means it was by far the nicest car he ever had.
I’m not even going to try to explain to folks who weren’t around in 1985 what an extremely important and influential car the Taurus was. It showed up GM and Chrysler by proving that Detroit was capable of building a world class sedan, without being pretentious or slapping “Euro” badges all over it. It was the first sedan from the Big Three that understood that the key to success was being all-round capable without any weaknesses, not just flexing a random muscle here or there, which had been GM’s game plan for way too long.
And then of course the was its design, which proved that Americans were quite willing to embrace something new, as long as it wasn’t too new. The Audi 5000 had paved the way to acceptance of the new clean aero look.
Does this bring back the memories: those big, comfortable mouse-velour upholstered seats in that gray. This one, a 1990, is a couple of years later than my dad’s, and has a different steering wheel, with buttons and an air bag. The roarty sound of the Vulcan 3.0 V6, which gave quite decent performance for the times with its 140 hp. The new AXOD four-speed transaxle was smooth-shifting, and its overdrive was most welcome on the freeway. My dad never had any issues with his, but he did only keep it for some 7-8 years, and he was a fanatic about fluid changes, which was an essential component of helping to keep them from self destructing. He traded it on a ’93 Skylark, which was not as refined, comfortable and pleasant to drive as the Taurus. And no, he didn’t ask me input on that car, which would be his last.
We borrowed his Taurus for several longer trips in both the Appalachians and out on the Eastern Shore of Maryland. It was a very pleasant companion; not really athletic or inspiring, but a very comfortable and capable sedan, setting a standard for all FWD sedans to come. A Camry today owes a lot to the Taurus; same basic format, just more reliable.
My brother bought a wagon version, but he kept it too long, and it eventually needed more and more work. He eventually bought a Camry in 2003 or so, and needless to say, its utter reliability was a real contrast and revelation.
It’s too bad Ford didn’t have the reliability, quality and steady development and refinement of the Camry, as it could have become a real game-changer for Detroit. Instead Ford squandered a golden opportunity to reclaim a lot of import buyers, and retain them. Oh well…
We’ve given the gen1 Taurus some serious attention here before. I called the 1986 Taurus “The Most Important American Car Since the Model T”. I wonder how well that claim holds up.
Our resident Taurus expert, Ed Snitkoff, has done the gen1 justice in here too: CC 1986 Ford Taurus: At This Moment You Mean Everything; and this one: “Good Role Models and Clear Objectives Create a Breakthrough Car“. There’s others too; just use the CC Search bar.
I Am Not An Expert on these,But I Think The Automatic Transmission Is Probably The Reason That Drove These Into Early Graves.I Still Like These And RoboCop.
These Taurii get a lot of love at CC, but deservingly so – they were great cars and way ahead of the curve.
My 2007 Five Hundred had the 3.0 Vulcan which had been upgraded to 203 hp and a 6 speed Aisin transmission. Those two things were solid, the rest of the car, no so much.
Th Five Hundred never used the Vulcan, they used the Duratec. Both 3.0 liters but totally unrelated families(Iron OHV vs. aluminum DOHC), the Vulcan never got much of a meaningful power bump, the 06 Taurus with it only had 145 horsepower, not much for 20 years.
The Vulcan was rated at 145hp as installed in the 3rd generation Taurus. Power was increased again to 155hp for the 4th generation.
Ah, I thought with the same engine size that it would have been the same engine. Silly me
I never got the hype about these cars. The ones I drove weren’t particularly good at anything, and the tend to fall apart with aclarity.
Compared to a Chevette, I guess it isn’t so bad.
Part of it, I think, was that the Taurus came as such a start contrast to the Fairmont, Malibu, etc. that came before. Instead of “Here’s a box with wheels. Drive it and be happy,” the Taurus came across as a design that actually took some thought and effort. The execution may have left something to be desired in terms of quality, but the concept was certainly appreciated.
I’m sad to say I never drove one of these first gen models. We rented a 2nd-generation once; nice, but fairly conventional by that time. Then, of course, came the Oval Madness period, and the jig was up.
How about compared to a Chevrolet Celebrity or Plymouth Caravelle? That was the Taurus’s direct competition when it debuted.
Exactly. “Here’s a somewhat more refined box. We can slap a ‘Eurosport ‘ badge on it if you want.”
And they wondered why people laughed!
Even then, I wouldn’t have bought any of them. I had a nice Accord, and loved it.
The Accord of that vintage was a nice car, but smaller than the Taurus. (And the Accord was not available as a wagon in the U.S. in the mid-1980s, unlike the Taurus. That didn’t happen until the early 1990s.)
This Taurus provided the template for Toyota and Honda to upsize their respective competitive offerings.
The biggest difference of a US product versus the Japanese product was the width of the car, at least in regards to the interior. Camrys and Accords were more cramped feeling, at least to a lot of Americans. The Japanese tended to overcome this by deleting bench seats, but you felt it in the rear seats and lack of shoulder room. The Taurus had the feel of a larger car. While the Accord may have been better, it felt too different to a lot of folks.
It was the first of its kind that was large enough to give you most of what you got in the imports of the day with the added room and power that they could not match, at least not for anywhere near the price.
Where buyers of big cars were never going to be happy in a Camry or Accord of 1986-89, they could be happy in a Taurus. The Accord and Camry kept growing and eventually competed head-on with the Taurus, and by that time were thoroughly better cars.
That’s the thing. As much of a style revelation the Taurus might have been for a domestic, the Camry and Accord were still way ahead in terms of reliability. As anecdotal evidence, you still see an occasional eighties’ Camry or Accord on the road. The Taurus (or any domestic, for that matter)? Not so much.
I still see an occasional GM A-body from the mid- and late-1980s on the road (usually an Oldsmobile or Buick version). By the mid-1980s, they were reasonably well-sorted from a reliability perspective. The problem was that they looked dated and tired by that point.
The Camry and Accord were more reliable than the Taurus, but they were smaller, and didn’t have a wagon version (which still mattered to some people in those days). Note that the Camry didn’t become the country’s best-seller until Toyota “upsized” it to match the dimensions of the first Taurus.
The V6 engine of the Taurus also set it apart from the smaller Japanese cars that were exclusively 4s in the mid 80s. The Camry came out with a V6 (in what, 1987-88?) but as I recall it was very pricey and not that commonly purchased.
I would say that gen 1 Tauruses are rare, and gen 2s are getting there. Surprisingly, some one at my church has a gen 1 Sable….station wagon. It’s grey on grey, an LS, and therefore has the DOHC engine. I think, if I remember correctly, it even has the LS’s floor mounted shifter.
I prefer the Sable to the Taurus, but if I could find a gen 1 Taurus with the DOHC, I’d be tempted to make an offer on it.
My father has 3 Tauruses, NONE of them were gen 1. And like Payam says, all 3 eventually developed (premature) transmission failures.
Only the first gen SHO had a DOHC engine. There was no mass produced DOHC engine for the Taurus and Sable until the third generation.
Yes,
I realized after reading a few comments after mine that the 2nd generation Taurus was a refinement of the 1st generation and the 3rd (not the 2nd) was the ovoid Taurus.
As a consequence, I realized the Sable I commented on wouldn’t be a DOHC, but it would PROBABLY have the optional 3.8 liter engine, as I am reasonably sure it’s an LS.
And further, my father owned 3rd and 4th (?) generation Tauruses….but all 3 would eventually develope transmission failures of some kind. The 3rd generation would tend to develop what I believe some folks called a “flare”. (The transmission would hang between gears, and then slam into the next gear.)
Yes, no DOHC in the Sable until the duratec 3.0 in 1996. Being an LS only meant trim and option differences, the 3.0 Vulcan was standard on both GS and LS, even when the 3.8 was added to the option list in 1988(the DOHCs were actually the direct replacements for this engine option).
I’m always saddened when these articles highlight the increased scarcity of old classic cars. Maybe we could try to overlook that fact?
It is depressing, I agree, but at least these old cars are being used for their intended purpose. It’s even sadder when something is just left to rust, in my opinion. Take the poor old SS United States in Philadelphia, for example. Better to go out doing your job, whether you’re a ship, bus, plane, or Taurus.
It’s hard to overlook, this is the only gen one I’ve laid eyes on in months, so even without the commentary it reminds me how uncommon they’ve become.
The first gens always kind of were around here, 80s Fords just get destroyed by Midwest winters. These were one of those cars that would have visible rust before your done making payments. Resale was really bad too as I recall.
I remember when the Taurus was seemingly everywhere in South Florida when I grew up (the WPB area). I used to call it ‘The Bull Car’. The grille-free ‘aero’ look certainly looked different to my 13-year-old eyeballs when it debuted in 1986. They stuck out quite a lot to me. Looking back, I they were ubiquitous in S. Florida before I even knew what ‘ubiquitous’ meant. Taurii everywhere!
Looks like the Taurus pictured could use some wheel covers. It really would look nicer with some covers.
I noted another thread recently about a 1986 diesel Chevette that someone had taken great care of and it appeared at a recent car show; alreet then, has anyone seen an ’86 Taurus in good nick at a car show?
A few years ago someone offered a mint, low-mileage 1986 Mercury Sable for sale at one of the Carlisle shows.
I think it’s a part of growing older, Ramón. The other day in traffic I saw a first-gen Mitsubishi Magna, like one we used to own. It made me realise how long it had been since I’d seen one on the road – wow, was it really 28 years since we’d bought that car? Must be gettin’ old!
And my Dad used to think a 1940 Ford was a new car…..
Great quotation from Iacocca:
“Those potato cars (Taurus and Sable) they’re coming out with are gonna bomb!”
He then threw chrome-bespangled “bricks” at the the “potatoes”: Dynasty/New Yorker/Fifth Avenue/Imperial. Who was right?
See previous CC entry:
https://www.curbsideclassic.com/automotive-histories/when-bob-lutz-and-lee-iaccoca-first-met-those-ford-potato-cars-taurus-and-sable-are-going-to-bomb/
Did he ever come to see how wrong he was?
Most likely. The cab-forward cars were being developed before he left including the senior bodies with rooflines deliberately designed to foil anyone attempting to even add an aftermarket vinyl top.
These first gen examples have pretty much vanished from the East Coast. And models in good condition are even more scarce. Ditto the Sable. At some point I intend to pick one up if I can find one remotely worthy of being purchased. Even first gen SHO’s are going by the wayside, probably because they’re temperamental beasts, or so I’ve heard.
It’s a bit ironic that the current Fusion overcame the reliability issues of the Taurus just as crossovers and trucks became popular enough for that not to matter too much. And now that I think about it, Ford’s current mid-size embodies all the peaks and valley’s of the first three generations of the Taurus. Like the first gen bull, the 2013 Fusion got praised for its bold styling that emulated its European ancestors and for altering the perception that Americans auto manufacturers couldn’t build truly competitive products. Like the second gen Taurus, the refreshed Fusion currently exists as a lightly redone model that could probably use a redesign sooner rather than later. And the Fusion also now finds itself competing in a market hungry for more truck-like vehicles, which similarly affected sales of the Taurus back in 1996. I wonder how many Fusion owners are switching to Ford’s crossover, SUV, and pick-up models.
Just out of curiosity Paul, how do later generations of the Taurus and Sable fare in your neck of the woods?
While we’re somewhat on the subject, don’t the 3rd-generation Taurus (1996-1999) and 2nd-generation Fusion/Mondeo (2013-) appear to share that same ovoid shape that’s virtually used on ALL cars now? I certainly see the resemblance. Why did it take 17 years for that design to be universally accepted? Here’s the Taurus.
And here’s the Fusion/Mondeo. Makes you think, doesn’t it?
I was 5 years old when these cars debuted in 1985. I still remember how futuristic they looked at the time compared to everything else on the road.
I remember seeing one on the cover of Car and Driver, and how happy I was that at last America seemed to be back on track again.
I was gonna say the same. They were such a contrast to everything else – somewhat startlingly-so.
I had a 1987 Taurus wagon when it was about 9 yrs old. It had high mileage and some rust issues, but was comfy and dead reliable. After about a year I traded it for an ’87 VW Jetta. Big mistake! I should have used the money I spent on that POS VW and had the body on the Taurus fixed, and just kept driving it.
Pic #3 is my interior, but without my modified dash. My ’90 wagon with the mighty Vulcan (150 prancing horses, that year so the local Ford parts dept. has told me) just passed 195,000 miles so I guess it qualifies as low-mileage for a 28-year-old car (build date Oct. 5, 1989). Bought it used in 1997, in December I’ll have owned it 20 years. Just gotta take care of them. Put new Michelins on it in January, just had the windows re-tinted last week and next spring it’s getting a new paint job from Ford or a GOOD body shop.
What killed these up north was rust. Despite a good design, their rustproofing was not perfect and these were known for rusting out at the rear wheel-well doglegs. By the time it became visible, it would be a goner. Down here in the south they last. People just couldn’t shake that planned-obsolescence thing that Al Sloan invented at GM 90 years ago.
Enclosing a photo of my dash and front seats. Removed and laundered the upholstery last year, after I replaced the dash. Still have to reinstall the kick panels. Sanded the fake wood grain off the aluminum instrument cluster face. It now has a Sable cluster with tach, painted to match the panel aluminum, and a SHO 140mph speedo (correct mileage) so I can see when I’m really moving. 🙂
Lgbpop, I love that your taking care of your wagon and keeping it going. I have a huge heart for wagons and also for keeping cars on the road and keeping them looking nice even if they are just older “normal” cars. I’d love to see more pictures of your car.
Thank you! Here are a couple of websites you might find interesting, then. I’m somewhat active on the TCCA forum (my car was elected as Car of the Quarter, Q1 2016 🙂 ), although after my cancer surgery I’ve taken a bit of a hiatus…
http://www.taurusclub.com/forum/
https://www.facebook.com/groups/558734680911271/ (Longroofs group)
I will get some more photos up for ya. We hope to see a clear day tomorrow, after four days of rain here in FSW Fla. :/
I’ll leave you with one more I took about 18 months ago before I had the windows re-done. It’s an honest 10-footer. 😀
One more for any hard-core Bull fans…December of 2013, when I rebuilt the suspension with all-new parts (Motorcraft or Moog, no crap) on both sides, and replaced a broken driver’s-door lower hinge while the fender was off. Rotors and calipers were OK, although I had new bearings pressed into the spindles. Call me crazy, but parts for this car are dirt-cheap. Why replace a great car?
First time I realized how good this car handled, with unworn parts. 🙂
Id often see a white one at work early in the morning, but haven’t seen it in a while.
When I was a young’n circa y2k the 1st and 2nd gen Taurii/Sables were one of the most common hand-me-down cars among kids my age, and I ended up driving a whole bunch of them during that time. Even then – nearly 20 years ago now – most of their transmissions were slip-sliding away, so it’s no surprise that they’ve all gone to the great big junkyard in the sky. Here in NY, they’ve been an uncommon sight for years already.
I still wish I could have a 1st gen SHO — except in the regular LX (or whatever) body style rather than the bedazzled version.
First gens are virtually nonexistent around here in the northeast, with second and even third generations becoming scarcer.
Also, I’m sure this isn’t new info to everyone, but I find it interesting that the iconic first and second generation Taurus “grille” was not listed as standard on all first year models. Early 1986 L models were shown with a more traditional looking open unpainted grille.
Never seen that one before (the one in the brochure). All the ones I saw seemed to have the same one as the featured car but in body color and then some (the police package?) had three little slots on either side of the floating Ford logo. (But painted as well.) I’m pretty sure I would have noticed a black grille on the front of a Taurus, that panel being body color and pretty much grille-less was part of the “magic” of it back then.
Have you seen any like that? Sometimes the brochures do show stuff that never makes it to production. I remember at the CC meetup in Auburn someone had an ’83 T-Bird brochure that featured some “standard” wheels on a pictured car that nobody had ever seen in real life.
You could in fact be on to something there Jim. Brochures were often printed before the vehicles even went on sale, so indeed that grille design may have likely never made it into production, with all production models receiving the “floating oval” panel. If not, it must have been dropped mid-way through the 1986 model year at the latest. I’ve never seen one in person.
Jim AND you both are correct. This was a brochure special. Ford engineers had final say on this project, for once, and they determined the low cD in this car would make a conventional grille worthless and useless. Only other air source was what slipped beneath the car, so Engineering dictated the car be a true chin-breather and the grille was scrapped. As a sop to Styling, the little “kisser” opening was OKed for production.
As far as the police-issue slots, I doubt they had much effect but it made the car more saleable to law-enforcement departments.
This class of police cars were not purchased for high speed pursuit work, so aerodynamics is secondary. I suspect the slots helped for extended idling with the A/C running.
Another item from the ’86 Taurus brochure that doesn’t seem to have made it to production are the “vertically sliding vent windows” listed as an option for all ’86 Tauruses (and Sables too), much too my chagrin (see “comfort and convenience” options). I always liked having front vent windows, and Ford offered them long after they’d been dropped by other manufacturers.
So many a la carte options on American cars back then! Five color-keyed interior color choices, bench or bucket seats, velour or vinyl/leather, analog or digital gauges, power multi-adjustment seats on either or both sides, electric Insta-Clear windshield (remember those?), upsized gas tank, whitewalls, alloys, thermostatic climate control, 3rd row seat and slide-out picnic table for the wagons, cornering lights, and real keyless entry (with pushbuttons, no key fob necessary) that’s still an awesome Ford feature. There were many more.
I am happy to see this clarification! I have the 1986 Taurus U.S. brochure. It depicts the L-series sedan WITH a black slotted grill. In my research, the early marketing head honchos at Ford felt that they needed to offer a model with a traditional grill. Marketing got to work, designed, and printed the first run of brochures. However, this detail did not make it into production. To confuse this issue further, MotorWeek at the time made a video review with a 1986 Taurus L sedan – WITH a black slotted grill, and its Mercury Sable twin. Check it out here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1IysguBAsCU.
The grille you refer to was indeed part of the police package for better cooling, civilian models never had it as an option. I had this one I pulled from a junkyard several years ago
Take good care of it! – it’s worth over $200 to a serious Taurus fan.
I sold it for $200 to a taurus fan! 🙂
Here’s another photo of a Taurus with that grille from a previously referenced CC on Iacocca and Lutz. As noted in another comment below, it’s likely a pre-production prototype (notice the missing exterior rearview mirrors).
If any of them got loose, it would probably rate as among the rarest of Tauruses.
Drivers mirror was there, the guy with the beard has his hand resting on it. If you look in the brochure options posted above “dual” remote controlled mirrors was optional on the L model. Here’s a genuine production model without.
The thing I find odd about that photo is it has the optional basketweave alloys.
I’ve never seen that grill before in my life. Not in pictures or in real life.
If I remember correctly, that grille was used on preproduction prototypes. It was never used on a production car. It was seen in early brochures only.
My first new car was a 1988 Ford Taurus LX with the 3.8 V6. Thought it was a much better car than the Buick Century or Olds Ciera I was considering at the time. The modern aerodynamic styling and German Euro influences was what sold me. The 3.8 V6 was much peppier than the 3.0 V6.
Also looked at the SHO and marveled at that Yamaha-built 3.0 DOHC, and multi intake manifolds. But it was out of my price range and figured it would be expensive to maintain, not to mention the insurance. From the outside, looked almost as “innocent” as the LX, but boy who knew what evil lurked under that hood when that gas pedal was floored!
The Taurus wasn’t a bad car but did have its niggling problems. Had it for nine years and around 112,000 when head gasket problems and white smoke from tailpipe finally convinced me it was about time for a new car.
Yeah boy, you are one of legions of owners who encountered the “Essex experience.” Believe it or not, the 3.8L engine had the same horsepower rating as the 3.0L Vulcan, but a lot more torque. That explains your peppiness. Unfortunately, that engine became (in)famous for head-gasket failures and most people in the know shied away from an Essex-equipped Taurus with high mileage and/or signs underhood of previous overheating. I almost bought one once, private-party sale, but got curious when I saw the empty coolant overflow reservoir. The owner apparently was oblivious to the situation but with a full reservoir and the thermostat open I saw the telltale bubbles. I politely declined the chance to buy it.
There are custom, aftermarket shifter knobs for the Gen1 SHO with the “3” replaced with a “J,” for “Jesus!” – the common reaction from someone standing on the throttle in third gear for the first time. It was good from 20MPH all the way to over 80MPH, and when that high-revving Yamaha reached its favorite play space that car would MOVE. There are videos all over the ‘net of SHOs dusting off Mustangs and Corvettes.
I can attest to the 3.8’s peppiness in these as well, in fact the Taurus was the only car with th 3.8 where it didn’t feel sluggish in, likely due to the much lower weight vs the Foxbodies and MN12s I’ve also driven with them. It’s unbelievable how badly Ford botched the design, even more so how long it took to remedy it.
Even worse, the transmission problems happened in cars equipped with the 3.8 V-6, primarily because the transmission couldn’t handle the extra torque of that engine. So people who opted for the 3.8 V-6 got hit with a double whammy.
I knew people who had a Taurus equipped with the 3.0 V-6. They drove those cars for well over 100,000 miles without any serious problems – including transmission problems.
Hooray for the Taurus love here. It really was unlike anything mass-marketed in 1986.
Paul, I see enough of the subtly-different Gen2’s–even here in salt country–that I hadn’t noticed the Gen1’s having migrated to recycling yards. A quick cars.com check has a fair handful of still-decent Gen2s (only a few are SHO’s, with its own collector niche) for the curious:
http://tinyurl.com/TaurusGen1Gen2CC
I miss my dead-reliable 1990. After all my s-l-o-w 1980s cars, its 3.8’s 140 horses made for great acceleration and cruising.
Maybe it’s a worthy CC topic sometime, but the Taurus was perhaps the first Detroit car that didn’t look “downmarket” (to me) with blackwalls, and where the whitewalls actually looked kinda funny—as they do to me in this ’86 photo:
I would never expect to see these cars very long in the East. They do have issues with the sub frame rusting out. Just get under one and start looking at all the places where stuff can get inside the frame. Another downfall was the 3.8 Essex and the head gaskets not to mention some of the trannies used.
The interior, I can say first hand, were tough and durable. The 3.0 Vulcan, while not powerful, was just enough without being to powerful to kill itself.
Yet there are cars that when they get down to there third owner one of two things happen. If a special car then the third owner probably takes great care and tries to restore some of the former glory at least. If a beater type, then a few will take care of it, while the great majority treat the car as a beater to be discarded. The Taurus/Sable is definitely in the beater category right at birth.
Spotty quality/reliability was unfortunate. Early head gasket issues with the 3.8 were way too common. Two coworkers got “lemons”. We nicknamed the Sable “Disable”.
I liked the first generation at the time and thought it was the best loooking. My parents had an ’87 LX sedan. It seemed like an uncommon car. It had the floor shifter, moonroof and full digital dash and red cloth interior. I never saw another like it. After having some front end issues. It was traded for a 1995 Camry then that was traded for a 500 SL.
We had an 87 LX my mom bought used in 94. It was two tone blue with gray leather and an analogue dash. Console shifter and sun roof.
We had it for 5 years before we gave up on it due to an electrical issue that caused the car to just die while it was being driven.
It’s somewhat ironic that Iacocca would dis the styling of the Taurus when, in effect, it wasn’t all that different from the success of the Chrysler minivan. The minivan wasn’t technically the first of its type, but it was the one that brought the class of vehicle to the forefront and would sell in mainstream numbers.
So, too, was it with the Taurus. It was a copy of the Audi 5000 and Ford had already had success with the same sort of styling in the 1983 Thunderbird. The Taurus might not have been a homerun like the minivan, but it was definitely a triple and far and away better than the competition, which suddenly looked stodgy and old-fashioned. It’s not too different from Chrysler’s ‘Forward Look’ success of 1958, without the Chrysler quality gremlins.
Even in Tualatin pre-1996 Tauruses and Sables are rare as hen teeth though there is a 1st Gen SHO around here. The lack of available cars is one reason why I bought an 86 and 93 Camry to practice stick shift on.
My brother in law used to own a 1987 Taurus LX wagon that he purchased new. Within three years he had to have two transmissions replaced under warranty with less than 40,000 miles on the car. On top of that there were numerous electrical related issues particularly with the faulty digital instrumentation.
The Taurus actually drove fairly well and was quite refined compared to most other Ford’s of the day, but the Taurus was still a dissapointing automobile with its design and build quality faults.
I had one that was a nice car while it lasted. It started having transmission problems a bit prematurely, and finally just died. Some wag somewhere said the Taurus’s transmissions were made out of cardboard, and I half believed him.
We had an ’89 wagon and a ’95 SHO. Both were great, though we had the wagon for only about 60,000 miles before expanding onto a minivan. The SHO was a company car, which I kept well beyond the normal turn-in mileage. I finally let it go in 2003 at about 125,000, much to the relief of our fleet manager. No issues with it, even the clutch went the distance.
I remember the Car Talk Guys (Tom & Ray Magliozzi) stating that if the heater core on an early Taurus goes bad, you have to take the whole dashboard out, disconnect the air conditioning, and other horrors just to get at the heater core. It’s such a labor-intensive and costly job, that they advised just by-passing it [meaning NO HEAT] or throwing the car away. It was a really bad design. Maybe heater core failure sent many of these cars to an early death.
A friend of mine who was a mechanic at an independent shop with a working-class clientele told me how painful it was to tell people – ” $800 to fix it, $25 to make it stop leaking.”
Ah yes, “Click & Clack the Tappet Brothers”
Don’t remember having a heater core problem, but then I lived in Southern California (still do) and didn’t use the heater too often.
But I can sympathize with the pain to fix the problem.
It’s bad, but it’s not unique to the Taurus either. Most cars we’re driving today are no better.
Brothers?
Anyone else experience the following problem with the 3.8 equipped Taurus?
Blown power steering hose. First time it happened luckily was under warranty and the dealer replaced the hose. Second time was a year later and out of warranty. I took it to an independent shop I trusted (and less expensive). He noticed the exhaust manifold near the firewall was too close proximity to the power steering hose routed along the firewall and the heat eventually burned a hole in the hose. He searched the TSB bulletins and found the fix included a heat shield kit to be mounted between the hose and exhaust manifold.
Well, it was an expensive and labor intense repair to replace the hose and install that heat shield.. That 90 degree V6 was a tight fit in that engine compartment, especially near the firewall and rear cylinder bank.
I don’t believe the 3.0 V6 had that problem as it was a 60 degree V6 and there was adequate clearance.
Nice to see one in the wild. When they were new we called them “Bar of Soap” cars and theorized that bubbles would come off them when you drove in the rain.
They did do reasonably well in the long term, until felled by rust or transmission woes.
I’m late to this thread but will add one thought. For anyone used to the CAFE-strangled big cars from the early and mid 80s, the Taurus/Sable was a revelation. The GM B body and Ford Panther were clearly given engines and gearing designed to maximize fuel economy in the steady-throttle tests of the day, and not for driving. They were underpowered and geared too tall, and simply maddening to live with.
Right after my mother bought her 85 Crown Vic (which compared poorly in drivability with the 77 New Yorker I was driving at the time) I drove a guy’s early 86 Sable. Wow, the engine and transmission worked so well together. I think that the aerodynamic styling allowed the engineers to dispense with the power and gearing games in these. The powertrain was the most pleasant of any medium-big car made since the early 70s in my estimation.
It’s just too bad that those transmissions were so weak.
Well said. Which was precisely why it was something of a revelation. It was a car that did not feel compromised, proving that lighter weight, an efficient new engine and aerodynamics were the keys to good all-round performance in the new world order.
I hadn’t thought about the weight issue particularly, but (rounded numbers): 1986 Camry = 2400 lbs; Gen1 Taurus = 3000+lbs; 1985 LTD = 3200; 2017 Camry = 3200-3400; 2017 Fusion = 3300-3400; final-gen Crown Vic = 3700; 2017 Taurus (now a “full size” car) = 4000.
My household’s “other car” is an Escape (3350)—so when I drive our Gen3 Taurus, the extra couple inches sure make it seem luxuriously “full size” to me, if only 3480 lbs.
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BTW, fascinating story about about the early-brochure features that didn’t make it to production–thanks to all the ColleCtive wisdom!
On a daily basis I still see a good number of 20+ year old Toyota Canry’s and Honda Accord’s in service. Toyota’s and Honda’s are like the Energizer Bunny they just keep on going and going….
It’s been a long time since I’ve seen a 20+ year old Taurus or Sable on the road. Ditto for most other older Ameican made cars except for some American made trucks and SUV’s that seem to last.
+1
I remember the awful Taurus that I briefly rented back in 1987. It had a 4 cylinder that was noisy, rough and extremely underpowered. I had to return the Taurus because I discovered the brake lights weren’t working. The Taurus was swapped for an ’87 Chevrolet Corsica which was another unplesant experience.
No offense, but going for one of the V6s would have left you with a completely different taste in your mouth about the Bull. The four-banger Taurus was the worst mistake Ford ever made with that car. I daresay you’d still have a grin on your face, had you opted for a SHO instead. 😉
Yeah the 4 cylinder was just not enough for the Taurus. The Vulcan was good though. Had plenty of torque!
My 88 MT-5 is the same color as the Taurus at the top.
Im looking for a 88 to 95 but perfer my old 88vole betsie HOW ive missed u no better 1st car hands down in 2011 the 88 i had was legendary i dreams of one day sitting behind the wheel again 3614802740
Makes me sad. They’re too hard to find and I want to restore an 86 LX wagon so badly.