People forget. The Ford Taurus never gets the credit it deserves. People forget what a gamble it was for Ford, and what a huge payoff it’s success was. There would literally be no Ford Motor company today if the Taurus was a failure. They would have filed for bankruptcy and that would have been that. Imagine the effect on the American Auto Industry as a whole if that would have happened. But the Taurus wasn’t a failure, it sold over 200,000 units in it’s first year, over 1 million units in its first 3 years. It was Motor Trend’s Car of the Year in 1986 for Pete’s sake. This is the Taurus I’m talking about. It’s such a common car, it’s easy to forget this stuff.

The Taurus was the future in the 80s. In addition to jump-starting the American Auto Industry, the Taurus was widely copied, and basically started the aerodynamics craze in consumer cars. Cars simply weren’t aerodynamic in the 80s before the Taurus. People forget about the Ford Taurus SHO, the Super High Output version that Ford built basically just for it’s car fans.

People forget that in 1997, the Taurus started replacing the super successful Thunderbird as the NASCAR racer of choice. It won nine more races in its first season than the Thunderbird won in its first five seasons combined. People forget this stuff.  The Ford Taurus, forgotten King of the American Road, one of the best selling American cars of all time. Long live the Ford Taurus.