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1986 Ford Taurus Team’s Decisions Were Revolutionary: Video

By now, it’s a well-known fact that the Ford Taurus quite literally saved The Blue Oval from extinction at a time when American automakers, in general, were falling behind their Japanese rivals in terms of both design and quality. The Taurus debuted to much fanfare and became an instant hit with consumers, overtaking the Honda Accord as the best-selling car in the U.S. in 1992, and it never looked back, racking up more than eight million sales in total before it was discontinued in 2019. Recently, MotorWeek took a look back at some of the decisions FoMoCo’s design team made that helped spur much of that success.

The 1986 Ford Taurus design process.

When designing the 1986 Ford Taurus – and Mercury Sable – the automaker focused not only on styling, but also, aerodynamics. The DN5 project, as it was known, was the first within Ford to use a team design concept, which consisted of a small group of engineers working together from start to finish. With bean counters not included in that process – this was a project that reportedly cost $3 billion – that team focused on the concept of form following function, while taking advantage of all of the available interior space provided by the exterior design.

Speaking of the interior, its controls were designed to be easy to identify by touch alone, coupled with therapeutically designed seats for maximum comfort. In an effort to retain a uniform design in both areas, the jelly bean shapes present on the outside of the first Ford Taurus carried over to the cabin, with fabrics matching exterior colors as well. The DN5 design team leaned extensively on computers for this process, and in fact, 90 percent of the final design’s body panels were finished in that manner – then checked for proper alignment and assembled mostly by robots as well. The Ford Taurus program used more prototypes covering more miles than any that preceded it, too.

Despite operating under immense pressure, Ford remained confident that the Taurus would ultimately be a hit, and it certainly succeeded in that mission. However, as Ford Authority previously reported, the Taurus name was one of 20 that the automaker considered – including, interestingly enough, Integra, which has since been used by Acura.

Brett's lost track of all the Fords he's owned over the years and how much he's spent modifying them, but his current money pits include an S550 Mustang and 13th gen F-150.

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Comments

  1. I was a member of Team Taurus in the 1st half of the 1980s. Our work was fundamentally guided by two seemingly contradictory goals… be best-in-class and do it at Chevy Celebrity costs/prices. Best-in-class (BIC) was not a class of traditional American insular sedans, but included out-of-class vehicles like Audi. We successfully democratized a heavily European-influenced tidy chassis and classy aesthetics.

    Reply
    1. THANK YOU!!!!!
      The 1986 Ford Taurus was the BEST car I ever owned!
      It lasted over 430,000ish miles, with only the water pump failing EVERY 60,000ish miles like clock work! LOL!! Ford’s planed obsolescence at it’s best!
      They need your HELP!
      Quality now SUCKS!!

      Reply
    2. That’s really cool to see someone who helped on the Taurus design project here. I’ve been trying for 6 years to find an LX Taurus wagon from the 1986 model year (hoping it will be in medium canyon red) I want to save and restore but they’ve been so hard to find now. Almost had the chance to get one in white with the instaclear windshield in 2019 but things got in the way and I’ve had no luck.

      Reply
      1. Sadly, that 1986 Taurus did not quite meet our quality targets. The culprit was the Aerostar. Aerostar had a very difficult 1985 launch at the St. Louis assembly plant. Engineering and manufacturing resources were redeployed to improve the Aerostar launch. That took resources away from preparing the Taurus launch.

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      2. I had an ’86 Taurus in Canyon Red. Was a great car. Bought it new when they came out. Unfortunately is was all rusted out by the year 2000 at 186000 miles, so I sadly had to junk it. It was very dependable and other than normal maintenance items, never had to repair or replace anything.

        Reply
  2. We had an 85 and a 95. They were good cars, especially the wagons. At the time (and still) I am sure Ford was influenced by the Audi design . . . which was not a bad thing.

    Reply
  3. Absolutely fabulous how the team of designers worked tirelessly to develop such great aerodynamic cars back then, the use of wind tunnel devices, clay models , to achieve unique designs. These days auto designers get life easy, all they do is draw pictures of head lights and tail lights on paper, cut them out and paste them on shoe boxes.

    Reply
  4. When Ford, Mercury and Lincoln had innovation and exciting full line products

    Reply

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