Happy 10th Anniversary of Your Death, Ford Taurus
Exactly a decade ago today, Ford ended production of the legendary Ford Taurus.
Along with Dodge’s Caravan, the Taurus is absolutely one of the most influential and important cars of the 1980s. It ushered in a new era of automotive design in North America and created a wholly new template for the modern sedan — and Ford turned its back on it.
Launched in 1985, the initial Taurus replaced the conservative LTD as Ford’s midsize offering. Borrowing a great deal from Ford Europe’s Sierra and Audi’s 5000, it was highly praised for its modern, aerodynamic design and immediately became a sales leader. Over two million first-generation cars had been sold by 1991.
The car received a subtle and familiar redesign in its second generation before Ford decided to make the car unrecognizable in 1996. Jack Telnack’s controversial ovoid redesign of the Taurus led to diminished interest from the public, although rental fleets kept figures high enough to keep pace with Japanese midsize imports like the Camry and Accord. Telnack left Ford the following year.
As interest in the Taurus declined, Ford began seeking ways to cut costs in order to keep the model competitive. In its 2000 redesign, Ford eliminated premium features on higher-end models and dropped the SHO performance variant.
Ford’s decision to eliminate the Taurus is difficult one to understand. Sales of the fourth-generation car remained relatively stable until the company began cutting back on production, only selling to fleets by 2006. While the terrible cast iron Vulcan V6 stretched itself to its absolute limit to compensate for the model’s continually growing mass, the Duratec 30 provided better-than-tepid power. Ford was facing very public financial troubles at the time and was losing the sedan war to the Japanese, but it could still be argued that the demise of the Taurus was premature. Honda sold 369,293 Accords in 2005, while Ford managed 304,851 as production began to slow.
When the last Taurus finally left the line in Hapeville, Georgia, it took 1,950 jobs with it. One of those jobs belonged to John Rape from Zebulon, GA. “It hasn’t sunk in yet. Wait until Monday morning when I wake up and don’t have anywhere to go,” he told USA Today in an interview.
Rape and the other workers could select among eight different separation, educational and retirement packages offered by Ford. At the time, the company was undergoing its massive The Way Forward restructuring plan aimed at reshaping the company and reducing expenses as hard times approached.
The last fourth-generation Taurus went to Chick-fil-A restaurant chain founder Truett Cathy, who credited the success of his first restaurant in Hapeville to repeat business from Ford workers across the street.
The Taurus’ death was short lived, however. Rumors of the Five Hundred being renamed as the Taurus were confirmed in 2007. That year, revamped Five Hundred and Freestyle models were unveiled as the Taurus and Taurus X at the Chicago Auto Show. Ford’s CEO at the time, Alan Mulally, said that he believed the Taurus’ initial discontinuation was a mistake, asserting that the Five Hundred should have been named Taurus from the very start.
Despite the revived Taurus name, later models haven’t come close to the sales successes of the “failing” model years of the early 2000s. Ford only sold 48,816 units of the full-size current incarnation of the Taurus in 2015. Shrinking passenger car sales aside, it’s probably partly because it’s not the Taurus North America remembers anymore. That car died ten years ago.
[Images: Ford Motor Company]
A staunch consumer advocate tracking industry trends and regulation. Before joining TTAC, Matt spent a decade working for marketing and research firms based in NYC. Clients included several of the world’s largest automakers, global tire brands, and aftermarket part suppliers. Dissatisfied with the corporate world and resentful of having to wear suits everyday, he pivoted to writing about cars. Since then, that man has become an ardent supporter of the right-to-repair movement, been interviewed on the auto industry by national radio broadcasts, driven more rental cars than anyone ever should, participated in amateur rallying events, and received the requisite minimum training as sanctioned by the SCCA. Handy with a wrench, Matt grew up surrounded by Detroit auto workers and managed to get a pizza delivery job before he was legally eligible. He later found himself driving box trucks through Manhattan, guaranteeing future sympathy for actual truckers. He continues to conduct research pertaining to the automotive sector as an independent contractor and has since moved back to his native Michigan, closer to where the cars are born. A contrarian, Matt claims to prefer understeer — stating that front and all-wheel drive vehicles cater best to his driving style.
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My reaction on seeing my first Taurus was that it reminded me of the Audi 5000 but wasn't as sleek or elegant. Never owned one so I can't talk about reliability. I do remember a few things from driving them. I had several Taurus rentals on business trips. The soft suspension led me to underestimate the car's handling. Even driving as hard as I dared in an unfamiliar car, I had the feeling on exiting a corner that I could have taken it 10 mph faster. During a test drive of an early SHO, I found the transmission impossible to shift quickly. I suspect it would have loosened up in time the way my Infiniti G37S did. The later, ovoid models were fugly and the aerodynamics were screwed up. Above 85 mph, they became unstable so that you constantly had to correct for weaving.
I rented loads of Taurus sedans during the late 90's and early 2000's mostly basic SE or LX models and the vast majority had the clunky bat style column shifter which I always hated. Finding a bucket seat floor shifter rental Taurus was next to impossible. Several things always stood out to me. The Taurus transmissions never shifted as well as the GM 4T60/4T65 units in my W-body cars. They were slow and dim witted and the Vulcan 3.0, while being a good durable engine, was a bit noisy and sluggish and never got the mileage that my 3100 and 3800 W-bodies did. They were much slower too, especially on the low end. The seats were fairly comfortable and the 90's version had sharper handling than the 2000 on up models which felt a little softer and had more numb steering. They were competent highway cruisers but I usually preferred my 1996 Lumina or 1998 Grand Prix more overall due to the better power train combos, sportier interiors with floor shifter/bucket seat combos and the GP handled and steered better.