1988 Ford Taurus L Wagon Goes for a Drive

I'm driving a car that Motor Trend called the shape of tomorrow back in 1985 yes it is a 1988 for Taurus wagon I'm standing in front of a gold American estate car in base spec while I stand in front of a gold base spec American estate car because this 1988 example of the first generation Taurus even in L spec is one of the most significant cars of the late 20th century and possibly the most significant car for Ford in decades as it saved the company drinking in enjoyed the smoothness of this aerodynamic shape well it might not be very exciting to look at today but in 1985 when this thing hit the market this was beyond a revelation the Taurus was built to replace the Ltd now if a frame is pastry and stewed apples is body then the body on frame will drive v8 power delta T was as American Pie traditional American as any car could possibly be and this got it all wrong in that respect the engines in the right place but it's facing the wrong way it's driving our wrong wheels it's a monocoque shell its aerodynamic it's it's not American well not traditional American Ford in the early 80s were on the brink of bankruptcy again you notice this with car manufacturers quite a lot they give big highs and impressive lows and they get bailed out about every 20 or 30 years or so it seems anyway in the early eighties Ford was in a make-or-break situation once again and they threw everything into creating something totally new there's going to be the future and obviously the styling this aerodynamic sweeping look was the future they throw it in the Sierra coming over from Europe they knew what was coming they had to do something to match in the past American car design was quite bitty and separate so the exterior designers work separately the interior designers will work independently and the frame designers have put a frame together which is mornings work basically to girders yep okay pop this was a whole new concept in American car design team tourists as they became the only by Luis Valley but everyone together they put the designers of the interior the exterior the engineers working under the skin all together so they could talk to each other make a cohesive design that worked together they also took focus groups which is a new idea from American auto manufacturer they looked at every silver component they were considering steering wheels door cards gear shifts seats you name it they showed it to the public and then they were bought the rivals they bought Camrys in the courts they even bought five series because they wanted to run benchmark high quality stripped them to see how they were made how they were building them to a profit and how they're building them to a quality standard because Japanese and German cars at the time were significantly better made than Ford's of the time if we're honest jack turn that gun in charge of engineering ray Everts designed the exterior on the sedan and the easiest job of the entire project was the wagon designer jeff Teague he changed it from a four-door sedan to a five-door wagon I guess that was a busy afternoon well work together so we now have something that actually works as a design so the same concepts on the exterior are present on the interior so you've got matching color themes for example continuing shapes everything works and flows but this car is loaded with innovations this curved front end doesn't seem very exciting today but when you look at the previous 1980s 1970s cars of America it was vertical 90 degrees up 90 degrees across this is curving in this isn't a radiator this ovoid orifice as I've just heard it referred to isn't an air intake it's purely for decoration some people were more comfortable about the fact that there's something on the front it's actually got something called a bottom breather which sounds worse than ovoid orifice frankly to suck air in and feed the engine in the radiator Ford were understandably worried about the reaction the public we were going to have from this so much so even though this was slated to come into production in 1985 that kept on building the Ltd well into 1986 in case the public hated it so much nor bought it and they had a regular looking radiator grill on standby so they could retrofitted to existing cars and put all the thila stock or the normal-looking face so people didn't run away in fear but they were wrong this thing sold well we'll come to that in a second more of innovations first look at these headlights wraparound headlights even the indicators are wraparound but separate this is not an innovation today you might not think but the Ford had to lobby the safety board the n-th s a non NHTSA so there's a lot of letters in that the NHTSA National Transport Safety Advisory something because up until that point all American cars had to be fitted with either circular or rectangular lights you weren't allowed to have an interesting shape that was flush fitting to the body and aerodynamic it was against the rules Ford had to argue to allow this to happen they had to comply in other ways though because this is the indicator here and this is the indicator here and when you have the hazard lights on and that side lights on they flash off independently so there's always a side marker on at some point as you walk around the back of the car or back further into the car should say the bonnet is flush fitting the wipers are aerodynamically concealed by the lay of the bonnet here moving up this nicely rate windscreen nicely aerodynamic you've got aerodynamic mirrors which are a novelty as well not some sort of weird bolt on chrome II thing different shapes out because there are regulations in America regarding the shaitaan' of Uemura so that's a different side mirror on the passenger side to the driver side and of course objects in that mirror may appear closer than they are and the door is bolted to is also had an innovation this flush fits over the top of the car this is a wraparound door this is completely normal and standard today but in 1985 Ward had pretty much ended door handles again door handles flush fitting who knew you can make a door handle aerodynamic windows flush fitted the wheels pushed out right into the edges of the wheel arches for better stability better handling better aerodynamics although looking at these boats model wheel trims they were trying to appeal with the base model cars especially to a traditional buying public while wheels on cars look bizarre and anachronistic to me personally I think a lot of modern people however why wheels bent class and expensive these are wire wheel hubcaps on this thing it's so awfully is glorious in a funny sort of way now these cars are marketing firmly at the family the traditional American buyers so this has got loads more useful practical things for example you might think the split tailgate is special to BMWs but no turn the key clockwise you've got opening glass tailgate with easy access to your load area turn the key the other way you've got a properly open boot and this boat is cavernous so obviously it's a big American station wagon it's going to be cavernous and but there were lots of options this is the L spec so you've got a load space cover which is bizarrely mounted this high off the ground of the base of the carpet so you've still got ten centimetres of uncovered load area that's a very bizarre decision to make your spare wheel is here on the side like on a Range Rover behind a a plastic cover but unders carpeted floor you've also got a carpeted spare wheel space so you could I believe option a second spare wheel of course you could also option a third row seats typical family hauler don't forget Clark W Griswald drove one of these in Christmas vacation this is a proper American car just noticed quite a weird thing this loads face cover which I just said is very low set so about third of your boot space isn't under the cover no at the engineering stage of this car no the hundreds of people must been working on this thing no one said why don't we set this load space cover flush the windows so we clear the spare wheel instead they took the time to cut a notch out of it to fit around the spare wheel I don't gather anyway never mind having said that this space under here this cop did spare wheel hole it's actually quite secure because as well as I my handle to lift it it's got key lock so you can lock things safely underneath there and the whole thing does actually with the use of this handle here lifts up to make a very big area left hand suppose there are instructions everywhere in American cars for example on these four lash down points here objects restrained not to exceed fifty pounds see owner's guide I don't know if there's a scale anywhere in the cars at least to make sure there's also a little cubbyhole here for service access to the emergency fuel cutoff valve so the cars in a shunt it will cut the fuel pump off and you can reset it so pull the hood releases it says on the catch inside and then find the useful yellow labeled hood catch it and lift up and they're just actual proper struts not I hope messing around with a stick this is quite a kind of fancy this is the three liter Vulcan v6 twenty nine eighty six cc's of power in fact 220 horsepower at 6,000 rpm which would be screaming if not suffer a point and 200-foot pan torque which gives it apparently this is according to the internet so the owner says really when I told him nor 260 is six point seven seconds and a top speed over 140 he was a little cautious after chat being the truth so I'm gonna say yes because the internet says that's what it is but we'll see we'll see the Volcom was all-new engine for the car which French twins are lots of other cars after this there are a couple of engines but this is probably the most popular it came mated to the ax OD 4 speed automatic gearbox which was again new for the car there was a 4-cylinder 5-speed manual version available which has called the MT 5 which has aimed at the Japanese market incredibly in a tie-up with Mazda and sold through Auto Rama showrooms they didn't do particularly well because due to the size of the car it incurred horrific taxes and so Japanese buyers didn't buy them in droves but you know it's not as like a car is it so what do you expect mechanical crews was a standard fit item on this vehicle Ford have put all the information you're likely to need what a handy panel down the front this is comfy although this is to split seats it's actually a bench as well move these armrests up you've got three seat belts the third wheel here in the middle this is actually a three seat front three secret twin bench car very traditional very American as a European driver I'm struck by the level of equipment even on the most basic zero options car I'm looking at her right here this is a Taurus L which is the bottom of the pile in terms of trim levels and looking at what's on it it looks like not a single box was ticked when his car was brought in you probably by someone an old person know behind their last car looking at the trim level in the color combination pants and also the fatica Lea it was originally in Florida so retirement home perhaps retirement condo so when this was built with pride in Georgia they did the bare minimum but the bare minimum was actually pretty good so looking around the car we've got immediately cruise control here on the steering wheel which is an exciting thing which is uncommon in European cars in the 80s unless you're on a very high spec car we've got electric mirrors here on the door that's exciting but further down the door I'm shocked shocked I tell you to find keep it windows and actually mirrors manual windows who knew by hey let's have a proper look around this rather lovely festival of Bayesian fake wood so these seats check out the beige velour the baseness is just overwhelming and the darker shade of beige for the deep shag pile carpet and big beige mats which I think are original as well all the big beige door cards we've got the electric mirror which is on the left hand side of course if this is a next pickup or someone had optioned it you could have had electric windows which is just here and behind this blank panel here there is a round hole ideally shaped for an out speaker so you could have speakers for the radio here in the door as it stands there are only speakers up here in the top of the dashboard you've also got a little cubby hole down here it's a fairly shallow and quite narrow so it's good for pens and receipts and that kind of things just about get a wallet in there but not much else and a facelift later in the cars life got an all-new door card not long off this car was made actually which gave better arm rests bigger cubby holes I think I like some windows that may become standard as well at that point moving in front of you you've got the hood release because that's a hood not a bonnet and Mercedes style up we've got this awful awful brake release brake pedal for the parking brake which it frees up the center area for a third passenger but it's horrible thing to use I use it in my Mercedes daily I hate it buying another Mercedes to be perfectly honest because it's just a pain in the bum although current Mercedes now got the electric thing which I like even less let's go to another video in there entirely as I said earlier the design is more integrated more cohesive now so the light switch and the ventilation switches are all matching they've got this kind of nice I'm not sure we call it really looks like a angel interceptive so you got off parking and side dip headlights there and over here you've got your ventilation temperature power of the fans the power of fans compel you and in between that you've got a big speedo which goes all the way to 85 miles an hour now although the car apparently can do 140 speed I was in America were mandated they couldn't go over 85 in the 80s because of the 55 mile an hour speed limit why would you need a speeder that reads any higher than this the gorillas sake and so things like that won't they meant Back to the Future the DeLorean to have I think a European spec speedo fitted because the speedo in the car didn't reach 88 miles an hour to time travel so yeah on European motorways it's possible to be driving off the clock now you've got your temperature gauge and unleaded fuel gauge interestingly that even though the ignition is currently off both needles are still active and then above those two gauges you've got six on either side big warning lights you can see the ones on the left of obvious things like brakes and seatbelt warning the right and side ones have no indication is what they might be now below this we've got our vents because this car also has air conditioning as standard so the aircon would be always on common thing on American cars as American viewers will know it's just to have air conditioning just just on you wouldn't sell a car in hot states like Florida where this came from without aircon because you would die so you've got four big vents to here for the driver to here for the passenger and a couple of ones to blow onto the side windows a big one for the windscreen and in front of the driver they are set in the least convincing would I have ever seen now it looks very similar to the fake wood in a mark 3 Granada who are in the UK it didn't fool me in that either it's where the design kind of changes from this kind of slightly curvy angled look to very boxy all of a sudden because of two big box events he got the boxy very 1980s digital clock below that you've got a very very 1980s radio with lots of tiny buttons which I doubt 9:13 there's like 20 or so buttons or more on this radio cassette which is actually weirdly kind of half hidden by the cowling so that's kind of strange and beneath that is the ashtray and the lighter so you have got a 12 volt socket which you can plug in the below the dash should you need a sat-nav over to the left above the parking release you've got heated risk Green on a toggle switch which looks remarkably like the European forward toggle switches so that's an interesting world car part but next of it is a foot aftermarket fog light switch because when this car came to the UK it had to have its red indicators replaced with orange indicators in the back of the car and so the reversing lights were used and then and reversing lights to move below the bumper so that's the thing which has to happen to meet UK specifications if you're watching abroad so the steering wheel it's very big but right thin rimmed isn't it and to the left you've just got one stalk which has got your indicators your light flasher and your one screen wipers with the variable rate on it and you've got to tilt things so you can change the angle of the wheel which is quite nice and significantly for again a European driver what unusual unless you've driven I think it's maybe a couple of Mercedes but not much else you've got the pot brush neutral on a column shift again free up space for third passenger and you'll notice POC reverse neutral as you're looking at the cutaways on hopefully you've dropped in right now you've got two drives one in a circle one just a big D the circular one is for speed that's three speed with overdrive from the gearbox this one is three speed only it locks out the overdrive so he needs faster acceleration for going up or down the hill that kind of thing you can use that and finally you've got number one in the back you can lock it in first should you need to do so now as I say this is a base spec car there's not much do I have toys beyond now I mean you've got crews you've got electric mirrors and you've got air con so you're doing quite well you've got a radio cassette with just two speakers in it you have got Sun visors but there's no mirrors in them which is interesting let's go climb in the back and see what we've got over there oh yeah I should also say in the doors themselves because of you know mandated federal laws you've got a white and a red lights of passing traffic and see your doors open you wonder how many hours and family vacations were taken in the back of Ford Tauruses kids kicking each other battling across the Midwest so you've got the same slightly unusual tray shape to most door handles to open the door they're a little bit mobile if they think that quite thick plastics that probably won't break no central locking in this car because it's a basic L spec little tiny ashtrays in the door so when your kids are bored they can have a smoke in the back windup windows again a coat hook but no no grab handles I'm looking at this marking in the soft headlining which looks like there are holes perfect you can holes behind it so on the next speck up there would be a grab handle above three of the doors interesting this was in the car when it was came to the current owner we're committed from Nick Nichols Ford in Inverness Florida this is the supplying dealer when this cars on the forecourt this would have been in the little number plate holder on the front bumper that's an amazing bit of nostalgia to come with this car and it kind of gives a bit of proof if it was needed that this is a Florida car and these seats are really squishy it's the same lovely beige Valerie's in the front you've got two over the shoulder three-point belts a third lap jokes in the center no armrests but it is a 60/40 split fold so you can turn this big big boot space into a massive cavern we've got two more speaker grilles in the ceiling above the boot I don't there are speakers in there that may only be the two front dashboard speakers in this car and you've got a couple of the lights in the boot on either side at the back you've got a center dome right here as well as the red lights in the door you've also got lights under the dashboard below the pipe glovebox which is nice right v6 power that does have very effective power steering so it's nice and easy to maneuver the thing they stick in the overdrive version now let's not forget we are in a left-hand drive car today which freaks some people out driving in the UK and a left-hand drive car and they instinctively start driving on the wrong side of the road or something crazy or just can't figure out where the edges I've said that I'm going to pull in says discovery come with massive but today hopefully nothing will go wrong when this car was launched it was considered just wildly futuristic it was just a massively different from anything else that the Americans had seen before unless there happened to be some kind of Anglophile or Europe Eurocentric in they were familiar with the new fangled sierra over on our side of the Atlantic this was just bizarre it is so so future and future Lee advanced futuristic in advance just find some real words for this thing in cinema it became like a byword for future in Robocop all the cops drove sedan versions of this so yeah this was an exciting different unusual car the right main rivals that cries the doorjamb and even a lot of journalists were absolutely convinced this car was gonna be an utter flop and GM were rubbing their hands together with glee when I saw this thing thinking what a Ford done they've shot themselves in both feet and then turned the gun on their head they're not gonna get out of this alive but they were wrong because in 1986 they shifted 200,000 of them by 1989 they shifted a million by the time the car was replaced by the generation 2 they sold 2 million of the damn things that makes that a success in any one book frankly it sounds like a v6 but kind of not it's gonna like an air rushing kind of turbo you sound almost to it but it's not turbocharged obviously the steering is nice and accurate it's astonishingly light and I said its lights at low speed leaving the carpark but now we're on the road it's it's fingertip feather-light it's amazing the accelerator takes barely a prod to get the car moving even up to just like 30 miles an hour at a residential area like we are now it doesn't take much and the brakes the power brakes with a huge pedal for such a big heavy car this thing just stands on its nose when you hit them now something that may have worried potential buyers when they first drove one of these things was the with that big curvy bodywork the far corner of the bonnet does almost disappear from view so placing it on the road if you're not familiar with it it isn't exactly tricky but you need to be very aware of where the corner of the car is because it's quite a long way away from you that's a nice noise for everyday family car and this was an everyday ordinary family car in many ways the most ordinary car you could buy in America it's got lovely sounding engine it's nice having the indicator stalk on the left-hand side as you can just be used to it really it just feels very normal sometimes with left-hand drive cars making a sharp left is kind of tricky because you get blocked by the C post in this car with its insanely big glass area there's back windows a lot bigger than some houses front windows they're just nuts you've got no problem without whatsoever for an amazingly ordinary car astonishing the American everything from the fake wood to the side exit exhaust the country lanes we just came out of which would not cause me a blink in my Regulus and Mercedes estate suddenly felt quite narrow I'm sure you get used to it very quickly but it does have a very big presence on the road and then it breaks all good it's only got drugs on the back and this is the kind of car that I really like this is the kind of car that almost no one will bat an eyelid at because I'll look at it and go is a big beige estate car why do you care but if you know cars then you will know that this is more than just an estate car it's not just a station wagon in a slightly bland color this is one of the most exciting and innovative cars that has ever been produced this is the car that actually saved Ford Motor Company in America in fact in the Henry Ford Motor Museum there was one of these on the display marked the most significant car of the 1980s alongside the Chrysler minivan which defined an entirely new genre of vehicle in America I found them in the world below that minivan did kind of spawn the SUV later on so without words about that later because this is a six seater you do feel like you've really pushed far out to the left-hand far extreme of the of the driver's seat over here if you're driving on an interstate in America using the cruise control which is standard or in some rural road which is probably quite wired as well that wouldn't really be an issue but on roads which are barely wide enough to contain a car this size that does suddenly put your a slight disadvantage driving driving wise white letter ping all the time yes I know the doors open this is a very big very solid car but the door claim is surprisingly so tinny really such a big card not not such thick solid panels as you might expect for such a large vehicle and one thing I didn't mention in this car is complete absence of cupholders which I find astonishing in an American car there was a facelift during the series one production which put a different door card here and a cup holder down here but and this generation was early in the generation ones though cupholders tea shelf nothing at all we've got cup of tea on there it's gonna be in your lap in seconds so very poor design from for daenerys be considering they thought of everything else they didn't think were to put your cup of tea I guess the same guy who did the parcel shelf was responsible for tea holding responsibilities there are four basic levels to this car the L of the mt5 egl and the LX and the idea with this car was to sell you a level and entry points into the car and then load it with as many options as they could possibly sell you at the dealership so you could have this car by an L and you could probably spend more than the actual complete price of a really high spec car as standard but putting every option in the book on there so you can have electric windows sunroof cruise control is already on here leather seats better would you name if you can think of a thing that you can put on a car you can put it on this car as it was this car got none of that some little old lady or little old man drove into a dealership and inverness in Florida and basically bought the cheapest Taurus they could and that makes it something of a unicorn so yeah this car probably wound up in England with a servicemen the only reason we could think of someone importing a car as base level is this when you've got things like the the high output in the range would be that a service person brought it over with them it's an American air base in the East Coast and it just stayed here why else would a base model no option car have come over to the UK who knows I'm glad it did though because it's a fantastically interesting thing to roll around in and this is a car to the many that were sold with absolutely no options this is a really unusual and interesting cutoff and that parking brake is a bit of an annoyance but I think most people driving automatics in the States just slam it in park and leave it in gear you never even use it it's interesting looking at how this design was influenced so heavily by Ford of Europe with the the Sierra design but then looking at the mark on Mondeo it looks almost like this has now gone on to influence back in return back to the European design school and in fact everything that seemed so extreme and out of the ordinary when this car was new is now completely commonplace and normal of wrap around doors flush fitting everything it just makes so much common sense why wouldn't you do it that way and in fact this car had a drag coefficient that still does have a drag coefficient of 0.32 which is astonishingly low I think I mean the Vauxhall Calibra was anywhere was better at the time famously having the best drag coefficient of any production car it does lean a little in the right in the corners but that's to be expected the car rides very high indeed you're looking from the side you see how much ground clearance the thing has got its a family hauler it's going to be used for camping kayaking driving down dirt tracks but also even in the 1980s a lot of roads in America were still you know unpaved basic tracks and this guy had to better take everything fastest interstate at 55 miles an hour through to the crudest farm track so this is a car for all men a blue-collar arrow if you will this car is just brilliant it's the perfect road trip camping trip holiday car the summer space in the back for literally everything I mean you could just camp in it if you really wanted to just throw it in the back and just drive and drive and comfort this is a car that brought advanced really futuristic advanced motoring to the absolutely masses of America every man in America could afford the most amazing car in the world that's quite something that's an accolade and a half well thank you for joining me in this big chunk of everyday Americana which I've really rather liked and I might find myself on eBay a bit later on this evening thank you for joining me please it like and please hit subscribe if you've enjoyed this then it makes a massive difference to making more videos in this channel improving and you know making it possible to carry on doing it so thanks for watching I'll see you next time

Channel: furiousdriving

Views: 48,614

Rating: 4.9056468 out of 5

Keywords: ford, taurus, ford taurus, gen 1, generation 1, 1st generation, first gen, first genertion, mk1, mark 1, wagon, station wagon, estate, long roof, family car, american, american car, car, classic, retro, modern classic, 1980s, 80s, eighties, 1988, road test, test drive, review, blog, vlog, US, USA, yank, yank tank, left hand drive, britain, Taurus L, base spec, beige, gold

Id: 2ObrrGZ6PG4

Length: 31min 5sec (1865 seconds)

Published: Thu Jan 30 2020