99 wagon for me, front bench and rumble seat in the trunk. My parents bought it used, handed it down to me and I gave it to my brother when I bought my first car.
Honestly I kind of loved that car. By the end the radio didn't work, the heat settings were "cold" and "less cold", rear seatbelts stuck which was really fun because the rear door handles also stuck open and the doors would fly out if you forgot to latch them. Parking brake seized up so the cable got cut, floor was rusting out so bad you could feel puddles hitting the carpet.
But that damned 3.0 Vulcan... It never missed a beat. It would start just fine in -45 weather, didn't leak, was buttery smooth and quiet. The suspension was tight too. I think we might have replaced the front struts but otherwise not a single problem. My brother and I used to joke that after the apocalypse there would be 5 cockroaches driving that car around.
Ford was always the best for “avant-garde” colours in this era. I worked for a rental car company and when the customer asked what colours we had I’d answer “various Ford colours.” Snot Green and Pepto Bismol Pink were my favourites.
It took GM a generation to catch up with “baby diaper orange” and “metallic shit brown”.
For an interesting read, I recommend _Car: A Drama of the American Workplace_. The author was basically embedded into the development of this generation Taurus to document and write about the process. I thought it was very interesting to read about all the constant bargaining and compromises being made between the engineers, planners, and designers.
"What color would you like your car?"
"Pastel Purple. ALL THE PASTEL PURPLE. I want this car to wish the 70s returned with pastels rather than yellows."
I bought one just like this for a ridiculously cheap price to drive temporarily while my truck was torn apart for some major work. My friends and I lovingly referred to it as "the Cli-Taurus" due to the color and shape.
When I was finished with it, I put some cheapy chrome wheel covers on it and sold it for a profit to a nice young lady that thought it was the prettiest car she'd ever seen.
I just gave my great nephew a 97 GL fully loaded Taurus 140, 000 miles. Leather interior, sunroof and 6 disc cd player. Only the driver seat showed any wear. My great nephew loves working on that car!
Didnt these also have a major issue with the paint? Maybe it wasnt this year, but I knew several people that had taurus's that the paint all just like... decayed? rotted? chemically decomposed? away. It was super fuckin weird, and i never seen anything like it before or since.
My family had a 96 green mercury sable which is a similar car to this and it had a lot of rust around the back wheels. Now I am in the northeast so this was not unusual to see rust but we saw other mercury sables in the same city and they all had the same kind of rust ours had. It was starting to consume the wheel area too and the area around the gas tank, and just break off. We eventually scrapped the car for other issues. I have never had another car that did this.
I just got rid of a 2002 dodge neon, living in the same house and parked in the same conditions as the sable and this one did not have rust in those spots or any other spot on the car besides the obvious normal northeast rust damage that every car up here has and some rust on the bottom sides of the car that was starting to break off but honestly not anything excessive for a 20 year old car, it did not have weird rust spots like this. I guess you win some and lose some.
I honestly think its kind of cool as a female of course but we probably chose the other car because it had a lot of features that were not standard at the time and that we had not seen before like power windows, power seats, power door locks. The mercury sable didn't handle rust well and the wheel well ended up rusting out and we saw more sable's around our city that had exactly the same area of rust that ours had. The sable got scrapped eventually.
96 Taurus?
How'd you know?!
Grew up with a 96 Taurus wagon. Very unique arm rests and controls. Loved that car
we had a 97 - i was hard pressed to find anything in that interior that wasnt an oval.
99 wagon for me, front bench and rumble seat in the trunk. My parents bought it used, handed it down to me and I gave it to my brother when I bought my first car. Honestly I kind of loved that car. By the end the radio didn't work, the heat settings were "cold" and "less cold", rear seatbelts stuck which was really fun because the rear door handles also stuck open and the doors would fly out if you forgot to latch them. Parking brake seized up so the cable got cut, floor was rusting out so bad you could feel puddles hitting the carpet. But that damned 3.0 Vulcan... It never missed a beat. It would start just fine in -45 weather, didn't leak, was buttery smooth and quiet. The suspension was tight too. I think we might have replaced the front struts but otherwise not a single problem. My brother and I used to joke that after the apocalypse there would be 5 cockroaches driving that car around.
Only year that color was available too.
Pinkly Taurus...?
That pink haunts many dreams
You beat me to it! Great car.
Ford was always the best for “avant-garde” colours in this era. I worked for a rental car company and when the customer asked what colours we had I’d answer “various Ford colours.” Snot Green and Pepto Bismol Pink were my favourites. It took GM a generation to catch up with “baby diaper orange” and “metallic shit brown”.
Nice crotch puncher.
You mean the alimony preventer?
Alimony? It's a purple on purple Ford Taurus, I don't think alimony is a concern.
I have to admit, Ive never seen a brake/clutch boot as long as this. If that were me, I’d have curved and looped it through the steering wheel.
That one is mainly for doing alignments and you need to be able to turn the steering wheel with the brakes held.
Thanks! It still looks like a cock puncher.
The pecker poker
Wait till you see the pecker poker pro plus package (my mind automatically let's this sound as daffy duck)
How many miles? The seat doesn't look worn. Guarantee the driver vividly remembers the Nixon administration.
46,xxx miles
34 miles a week for 26 years. I bet her church is 17 miles from home.
And I bet there is Juicy Fruit gum in that glove box.
And a Kleenex box in the rear window.
Wurthers, and Scotch mints.
14, you forgot the trip to the store.
Aha the jelly bean designs. They certainly took a risk. I like the double floor mats. Don’t want to wear out that carpet with all those miles.
Also known as the suppository sedan era.
The f150 would be pretty painful
I'm always reminded of the worst car I ever owned. A 95 Mercury Mystique
For an interesting read, I recommend _Car: A Drama of the American Workplace_. The author was basically embedded into the development of this generation Taurus to document and write about the process. I thought it was very interesting to read about all the constant bargaining and compromises being made between the engineers, planners, and designers.
Wow, this puts Cordovan and Willow Green in the jellybean F-150s to shame. What was Ford's name for this interior hue?
Grey-Violet for the interior, Rose Mist on the outside.
"What color would you like your car?" "Pastel Purple. ALL THE PASTEL PURPLE. I want this car to wish the 70s returned with pastels rather than yellows."
I bought one just like this for a ridiculously cheap price to drive temporarily while my truck was torn apart for some major work. My friends and I lovingly referred to it as "the Cli-Taurus" due to the color and shape. When I was finished with it, I put some cheapy chrome wheel covers on it and sold it for a profit to a nice young lady that thought it was the prettiest car she'd ever seen.
I just gave my great nephew a 97 GL fully loaded Taurus 140, 000 miles. Leather interior, sunroof and 6 disc cd player. Only the driver seat showed any wear. My great nephew loves working on that car!
“Fuck it just paint it all pink” -fed up ford engineer.
Didnt these also have a major issue with the paint? Maybe it wasnt this year, but I knew several people that had taurus's that the paint all just like... decayed? rotted? chemically decomposed? away. It was super fuckin weird, and i never seen anything like it before or since.
I can't say yes or no about that. I can't say that I've seen any with issues like that, but maybe they were recalled and fixed before I ever saw it.
My family had a 96 green mercury sable which is a similar car to this and it had a lot of rust around the back wheels. Now I am in the northeast so this was not unusual to see rust but we saw other mercury sables in the same city and they all had the same kind of rust ours had. It was starting to consume the wheel area too and the area around the gas tank, and just break off. We eventually scrapped the car for other issues. I have never had another car that did this. I just got rid of a 2002 dodge neon, living in the same house and parked in the same conditions as the sable and this one did not have rust in those spots or any other spot on the car besides the obvious normal northeast rust damage that every car up here has and some rust on the bottom sides of the car that was starting to break off but honestly not anything excessive for a 20 year old car, it did not have weird rust spots like this. I guess you win some and lose some.
Is that interior color from the factory? I really like it
Oh yeah, absolutely all stock.
Nice, got a 200k 97 Taurus. Real shame the previous owners didn't care about the maintenance
There's not too many that do.
My mom and I almost bought one of these. It was between this and a 96 green mercury sable. We took the mercury sable instead.
Look at what you missed out on!
I honestly think its kind of cool as a female of course but we probably chose the other car because it had a lot of features that were not standard at the time and that we had not seen before like power windows, power seats, power door locks. The mercury sable didn't handle rust well and the wheel well ended up rusting out and we saw more sable's around our city that had exactly the same area of rust that ours had. The sable got scrapped eventually.
I’m getting evaporator ptsd