CarBrandLogos archive · Ford · 1985

FordTaurus

A bet-the-company aerodynamic saloon that America bought in enormous numbers.

Photo: order_242 from Chile · CC BY-SA 2.0

The story

A defining chapter in Ford history.

Explore the ideas, engineering and context that shaped the Ford Taurus, then continue into its specifications and place in the marque's lineage.

Origins

Ford was losing the American family car market to Japanese imports in the early 1980s and decided the answer was not incremental. The Taurus programme, run largely outside the normal structure, produced a mid-size saloon that abandoned the upright three-box shape entirely: flush glass, rounded corners, a nose without a conventional grille, and a drag coefficient far below anything in the class. Jack Telnack led the design, and the reaction inside Ford was reportedly nervous enough that a fallback plan existed.

2004-2006 Ford Taurus Sedan · IFCAR · Public domain

Design and engineering

It went on sale in October 1985 for the 1986 model year, and the gamble paid immediately. Underneath the aerodynamics was a thoroughly conventional and thoroughly competent car — transverse front engine, front-wheel drive, a spacious cabin and an estate version — and the package was assembled with more attention to build quality than Ford had recently managed. It became the best-selling car in the United States in the early 1990s, and the design language spread across the entire American industry within a few years.

05-07 Ford Taurus SE sedan · IFCAR · Public domain

In production

The follow-up went badly. The 1996 redesign pushed the oval theme to an extreme, applying it to the rear window, the dashboard and the tail lamps, and buyers rejected it. The Camry took the sales crown and never gave it back. Ford retreated into fleet sales, and the Taurus name was retired in 2006.

04Taurus · Reflect · Public domain

Legacy

It came back in 2007, applied to a much larger full-size car built on Volvo-derived architecture, available with all-wheel drive and, in SHO form, a twin-turbocharged V6. That car sold steadily without ever recovering the original's significance, and production finally ended in March 2019 as Ford exited the American saloon business almost entirely. The name lives on in China.

Technical specification

The Taurus, in detail.

Production: October 1985 – October 2006; May 2007 – March 2019
Class: Mid-size car (1985–2007); Full-size car (2007–2019)
Layout: Transverse front-engine, front-wheel drive; Transverse front-engine, all-wheel drive (2008–2019)
Manufacturer: Ford

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