Ford Taurus - Everything You Need to Know | Up to Speed

**The Evolution of the Ford Taurus: A Journey Through Time**

1989 was a significant year, as it marked six years before the birth of Post Malone and the introduction of the Ford Show, which stood for Super High Output. The Show was a game-changer, offering 220 horsepower and a sick 5-speed manual transmission developed by Mazda.

By the time the second-generation model was launched in 1992, the Taurus had become the best-selling car in North America, despite being a completely new design. This iteration of the Taurus looked more like a refresh of the first generation, with the Show getting an automatic transmission. You may have spotted Conan O'Brien driving his 92 Taurus around LA to this day.

In its day, the Taurus was quite the sexy car, but despite strong sales numbers, Ford didn't want the design to get stagnant. They asked designer Doug Gatschet to create something that looked way different from their best-selling car in America while maintaining the oval theme. The third generation of the Taurus was released in fall 1995 for the 96 model year and is probably the most '90s car ever created.

This era of the Taurus, designed to the extreme, featured a jellybean-inspired body with no straight lines, making it a head-turner... or not. Unfortunately, this design didn't resonate with consumers, and less than half of third-gen Tauruses were sold to the public, making them the king of fleet cars. My dad had one, given to him by his boss.

The 3rd gen Show was also plagued by issues, as they did away with the manual transmission and gave the car a 3.2-liter V8 engine. Sounds cool, but the engine suffered from separation of the camshaft from its sprockets, leading to catastrophic failure at around 50,000 miles. Ford quit making the Show in 1999.

Ford tried to dial back the third-gen design with the launch of the more traditional fourth-generation Taurus in 2000. However, by this point, the Taurus had become a car synonymous with corporate fleets and rental agencies. Ford sold this Taurus through 2007, temporarily retiring the nameplate.

The late 2000s were a terrible time for American auto manufacturers, including Ford. Instead of making a single new model, they introduced smaller (Fusion), larger (500), and crossover wagon thingies (Freestyle). Unfortunately, nobody wanted the 500 or Freestyle in North America, so Ford tried to win back consumers by renaming them the fifth-gen Taurus and Taurus X.

Nobody cared, and still, nobody liked it. Ford went back to the drawing board and launched a fully redesigned sixth-generation Taurus in 2010. Gone was the mid-size everyman's car; now the Taurus was a full-size highway destroyer. The new Taurus initially retained the 500's 3.5L V6, which was modified in 2013 to produce 288 horsepower.

There were two notable variants that enthusiasts are drawn to: the rebirth of the Show, powered by a 365-horsepower twin-turbocharged V6 Ecoboost, and the Police Interceptor, which came with a 3.7-liter V6 good for 305 horsepower but offered an optional SHO engine.

As I've said before, this is the best buy in cars right now. The editor of Bumper to Bumper bought one for like two grand. Despite the cool variants, the Taurus never regained its footing in North America and on March 1st, 2019, the last Taurus rolled off the assembly line.

My hero Robocop would say, "Hasta LaVista, baby." Thanks for watching Up to Speed and Everything Else on Donut. Follow me on Instagram and Twitter at Chance Bump Repo (Donut) and watch this episode of my son Nolan's show about the cheapest ways to go fast in a straight line.

Watch this episode of my other show; I Love You, I'm Not Scared Anymore. I love you.

WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enthe jellybeans the slipper the flying potato mr. dan of the future call it what you want but the Ford Taurus saved the Blue Oval's booty in the 80s and for a brief time turned the automotive world upside down and inside out so gather around your little Robocop and learn what this bull is all about this is everything you need to know to get up to speed Oh Thank You tuturro for sponsoring this week's episode if you haven't checked it out yet Turo is the easiest way to drive sick cars without the hassle of going to a car rental place plus it's legitimately way way cheaper Turo is available in over 5,500 cities you can choose from over 850 makes and models seriously name it they have it you ever tried to rent a Porsche from it's very hard you ever tried to run a Porsche from Toro very easy click the link below and sign up to get $25 off your first trip when you enter the promo code speed at speed SPE edy by 1985 Ford was three billion dollar euros in the red and going nowhere fast North American consumers were crushing on them Japanese cars more than Godzilla's little piggys Japanese manufacturers were considered much more reliable and fuel-efficient than their Detroit counterparts and to make matters even worse henry ford ii AKA hey the DOS had insisted Ford stay the disastrous course of developing boxy chromed out overweight and inefficient vehicles like the Ltd which is actually a very very sick car I want one very badly fortunately for shareholders and employees hate the news retired just as a dude by the name of Lewis morality started developing a revolutionary midsize sedan that can help Ford compete with the imports he nicknamed the project taurus after his wife not because she was like a bull but because Taurus the Bull was her astrological sign Louie honey what's my horoscope thing let me see here Taurus with mercury in retrograde don't be surprised if your husband develops a nameplate that sells over 2 million units in the first generation of production and single-handedly saves Ford from bankruptcy ha do you actually believe this nonsense but it turns out it wasn't nonsense morality implemented a team mentality by gathering all the production departments designers together so they could design the car from the ground up this minimized internal competition and increase the overall reliability and cohesiveness of the design because teamwork makes the dream work while team design is a standard practice now and potentially ruined cars in the 80s it was as groundbreaking as Henry Ford's original moving assembly line from 1913 the result was a front-wheel drive sedan and wagon variant that focused on build quality and futuristic styling and the car sold like hotcakes when it launched in 1986 now there's an American car with the shape and we've never seen before do people still buy hotcakes that seems like a bad analogy these days coffee makes more sense or meth so the 1986 Taurus sold like meth but why well first off it looked like something from the future design elements like flush glass and bonded brainless quarter windows hadn't been done before in fact bored was worried that design was a little too futuristic for consumers particularly the nose which did away with the conventional grille and opted for a bottom-feeder design instead it was so futuristic looking that Robocop drove one in the 1987 smash hit Robocop Dead or Alive you're coming with me but soon Ford's worried subsided as customers flocked to dealerships and demanded they sell them to curvy midsize sedan the completely new tourists came with completely new engines like the fuel-efficient 2.5 litre HSC which stood for high swirl combustion it was a 4 cylinder which pumped out 90 her Spurs the optional Vulcan 60° v6 which bumped out a hundred and forty Hertz per day in 1988 the top trim line came with the Essex 90° v6 which was good for it solid 200 Hertz purrs the handling was also sweet as Ford incorporated independent suspension and McPherson struts in order to give Auto journalist something to write home to mommy about dearest mother I'm writing to tell you I just drove the soon-to-be-released Ford Taurus station like it and can say with the utmost confidence that it handled better than the Audi 5000 say hi to Jimbo and grandma for me July 19 consumers were all about both the Taurus sedan and wagon why Drive a boxy Chevy celebrity when you can look like a celebrity in a curvy tourist board sold a million Tauruses in the first three years instead of resting on their laurels Ford kept the pedal to the metal and decided to do some crazy they threw in a Yamaha 3 litre v6 iron block aluminum head 4-valve dual overhead cam engine with an innovative variable-length intake manifold that rest to 7,000 RPM lightening the engine was originally developed for a mid-engine two-seater to compete with the pontiac fiero and toyota mr2 but that got scrapped so Ford put them in the Taurus starting in 1989 six years before post Malone was born hmm they named it the show which stood for super high output the show was good for 220 her Spurs and was coupled with a sick 5-speed manual developed by Mazda by time Ford launched the second gen model in 1992 the tourists had become the best-selling car in North America despite being a completely new design the second gen looked more like a first gen refresh the show got an automatic transmission and you can occasionally see Conan O'Brien driving his 92 show around LA to this day in its day this was quite a sexy car you believe that no despite strong sales numbers for didn't want the design to get stagnant so they asked designer Doug Gasca to make something that looked way different than their best-selling car in America while maintaining the oval theme the third generation was released in fall of 1995 for the 96 model year and it is probably the most 90s car that has ever 90s longer heavier and bubblier gafe katuk the jellybean designed to the extreme eliminating anything that resembled a straight line and unfortunately also eliminating the consumer it looks the exact same this way or this way you could move the dash to the back and drive it and would look exactly the same less than half of third gen Tauruses were sold to the public making the bubble torus Rex the king of the fleet cars as that's where most of them were unloaded my dad had one that his boss gave him the 3rd gen show was also a bit of a dumpster fire because they did away with the manual transmission and gave the car a 3.2 liter v8 sounds cool but the engine suffered from separation of the camshaft from its sprockets and since the valve train was an interference design this led to the Pistons and valves colliding and destroying the engine at around fifty thousand miles fun poured quit making the show in 1999 Ford tried to dial back the third gen design in 2000 with the launch of the more traditional fourth gen Taurus but by this point the tourists had become a car synonymous with corporate fleets and rental agencies Ford sold this Taurus through 2007 where they temporarily retired the nameplate the late 2000s were a terrible time for American auto manufacturers including Ford instead of making a single tourist board made a smaller mid-sized fusion a larger full-size car called the 500 and a crossover wagon thingy named the freestyle what are the kids like freestyle and favorite while the latter two cars sold well in other parts of the world nobody wanted a 500 or a freestyle in North America so Ford tried to win back consumers by renaming them the fifth gen Taurus and Taurus acts nobody cared and still nobody liked it Ford went back to the drawing board and Breen launched a fully redesigned six gen Taurus in 2010 gone was the mid-size every man's car now the Taurus was a full-size highway destroyer the new Taurus initially retained the 500s 263 Hertz per 3.5 v6 which was modified in 2013 to produce 288 her Spurs not bad there were two notable variants that enthusiasts are drawn to the Firth the first being the rebirth of the show which is powered by a 365 horsepower twin turbocharged v6 ecoboost and the second is the police interceptor which came with a 3.7 liter v6 which was good for 305 her Spurs but Ford also offered Johnny law a respect mouth or tie upgrade which featured the SHO engine in the police interceptor I've said it before and I'll say it again this is the best buy in cars right now the editor of bumper to bumper bought one for like two grand despite the cool variance the tourists never regained its footing in North America and on March 1st 2019 the last Taurus rolled off the assembly line as my hero Robocop would say hasta LaVista baby thanks for watching up to speed and everything else on donut follow me on instagram and twitter at chance bump repo donut on instagram and twitter at dona media watch this episode of my son nolan show about the cheapest ways to go fast in a straight line watch this episode of my other show I love you I'm not scared anymore I love youthe jellybeans the slipper the flying potato mr. dan of the future call it what you want but the Ford Taurus saved the Blue Oval's booty in the 80s and for a brief time turned the automotive world upside down and inside out so gather around your little Robocop and learn what this bull is all about this is everything you need to know to get up to speed Oh Thank You tuturro for sponsoring this week's episode if you haven't checked it out yet Turo is the easiest way to drive sick cars without the hassle of going to a car rental place plus it's legitimately way way cheaper Turo is available in over 5,500 cities you can choose from over 850 makes and models seriously name it they have it you ever tried to rent a Porsche from it's very hard you ever tried to run a Porsche from Toro very easy click the link below and sign up to get $25 off your first trip when you enter the promo code speed at speed SPE edy by 1985 Ford was three billion dollar euros in the red and going nowhere fast North American consumers were crushing on them Japanese cars more than Godzilla's little piggys Japanese manufacturers were considered much more reliable and fuel-efficient than their Detroit counterparts and to make matters even worse henry ford ii AKA hey the DOS had insisted Ford stay the disastrous course of developing boxy chromed out overweight and inefficient vehicles like the Ltd which is actually a very very sick car I want one very badly fortunately for shareholders and employees hate the news retired just as a dude by the name of Lewis morality started developing a revolutionary midsize sedan that can help Ford compete with the imports he nicknamed the project taurus after his wife not because she was like a bull but because Taurus the Bull was her astrological sign Louie honey what's my horoscope thing let me see here Taurus with mercury in retrograde don't be surprised if your husband develops a nameplate that sells over 2 million units in the first generation of production and single-handedly saves Ford from bankruptcy ha do you actually believe this nonsense but it turns out it wasn't nonsense morality implemented a team mentality by gathering all the production departments designers together so they could design the car from the ground up this minimized internal competition and increase the overall reliability and cohesiveness of the design because teamwork makes the dream work while team design is a standard practice now and potentially ruined cars in the 80s it was as groundbreaking as Henry Ford's original moving assembly line from 1913 the result was a front-wheel drive sedan and wagon variant that focused on build quality and futuristic styling and the car sold like hotcakes when it launched in 1986 now there's an American car with the shape and we've never seen before do people still buy hotcakes that seems like a bad analogy these days coffee makes more sense or meth so the 1986 Taurus sold like meth but why well first off it looked like something from the future design elements like flush glass and bonded brainless quarter windows hadn't been done before in fact bored was worried that design was a little too futuristic for consumers particularly the nose which did away with the conventional grille and opted for a bottom-feeder design instead it was so futuristic looking that Robocop drove one in the 1987 smash hit Robocop Dead or Alive you're coming with me but soon Ford's worried subsided as customers flocked to dealerships and demanded they sell them to curvy midsize sedan the completely new tourists came with completely new engines like the fuel-efficient 2.5 litre HSC which stood for high swirl combustion it was a 4 cylinder which pumped out 90 her Spurs the optional Vulcan 60° v6 which bumped out a hundred and forty Hertz per day in 1988 the top trim line came with the Essex 90° v6 which was good for it solid 200 Hertz purrs the handling was also sweet as Ford incorporated independent suspension and McPherson struts in order to give Auto journalist something to write home to mommy about dearest mother I'm writing to tell you I just drove the soon-to-be-released Ford Taurus station like it and can say with the utmost confidence that it handled better than the Audi 5000 say hi to Jimbo and grandma for me July 19 consumers were all about both the Taurus sedan and wagon why Drive a boxy Chevy celebrity when you can look like a celebrity in a curvy tourist board sold a million Tauruses in the first three years instead of resting on their laurels Ford kept the pedal to the metal and decided to do some crazy they threw in a Yamaha 3 litre v6 iron block aluminum head 4-valve dual overhead cam engine with an innovative variable-length intake manifold that rest to 7,000 RPM lightening the engine was originally developed for a mid-engine two-seater to compete with the pontiac fiero and toyota mr2 but that got scrapped so Ford put them in the Taurus starting in 1989 six years before post Malone was born hmm they named it the show which stood for super high output the show was good for 220 her Spurs and was coupled with a sick 5-speed manual developed by Mazda by time Ford launched the second gen model in 1992 the tourists had become the best-selling car in North America despite being a completely new design the second gen looked more like a first gen refresh the show got an automatic transmission and you can occasionally see Conan O'Brien driving his 92 show around LA to this day in its day this was quite a sexy car you believe that no despite strong sales numbers for didn't want the design to get stagnant so they asked designer Doug Gasca to make something that looked way different than their best-selling car in America while maintaining the oval theme the third generation was released in fall of 1995 for the 96 model year and it is probably the most 90s car that has ever 90s longer heavier and bubblier gafe katuk the jellybean designed to the extreme eliminating anything that resembled a straight line and unfortunately also eliminating the consumer it looks the exact same this way or this way you could move the dash to the back and drive it and would look exactly the same less than half of third gen Tauruses were sold to the public making the bubble torus Rex the king of the fleet cars as that's where most of them were unloaded my dad had one that his boss gave him the 3rd gen show was also a bit of a dumpster fire because they did away with the manual transmission and gave the car a 3.2 liter v8 sounds cool but the engine suffered from separation of the camshaft from its sprockets and since the valve train was an interference design this led to the Pistons and valves colliding and destroying the engine at around fifty thousand miles fun poured quit making the show in 1999 Ford tried to dial back the third gen design in 2000 with the launch of the more traditional fourth gen Taurus but by this point the tourists had become a car synonymous with corporate fleets and rental agencies Ford sold this Taurus through 2007 where they temporarily retired the nameplate the late 2000s were a terrible time for American auto manufacturers including Ford instead of making a single tourist board made a smaller mid-sized fusion a larger full-size car called the 500 and a crossover wagon thingy named the freestyle what are the kids like freestyle and favorite while the latter two cars sold well in other parts of the world nobody wanted a 500 or a freestyle in North America so Ford tried to win back consumers by renaming them the fifth gen Taurus and Taurus acts nobody cared and still nobody liked it Ford went back to the drawing board and Breen launched a fully redesigned six gen Taurus in 2010 gone was the mid-size every man's car now the Taurus was a full-size highway destroyer the new Taurus initially retained the 500s 263 Hertz per 3.5 v6 which was modified in 2013 to produce 288 her Spurs not bad there were two notable variants that enthusiasts are drawn to the Firth the first being the rebirth of the show which is powered by a 365 horsepower twin turbocharged v6 ecoboost and the second is the police interceptor which came with a 3.7 liter v6 which was good for 305 her Spurs but Ford also offered Johnny law a respect mouth or tie upgrade which featured the SHO engine in the police interceptor I've said it before and I'll say it again this is the best buy in cars right now the editor of bumper to bumper bought one for like two grand despite the cool variance the tourists never regained its footing in North America and on March 1st 2019 the last Taurus rolled off the assembly line as my hero Robocop would say hasta LaVista baby thanks for watching up to speed and everything else on donut follow me on instagram and twitter at chance bump repo donut on instagram and twitter at dona media watch this episode of my son nolan show about the cheapest ways to go fast in a straight line watch this episode of my other show I love you I'm not scared anymore I love you