The revolutionary Ford Taurus quite literally saved The Blue Oval from extinction at a time when American automakers 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. Thus, the Ford Taurus has since become a bit of a collectible, but few variants are rarer than this 1987 MT5 wagon, we’d wager.
This 1987 Ford Taurus MT5 wagon is up for sale with an asking price of $8,500 on Facebook Marketplace and a significant 285,000 miles on the clock, but we certainly don’t see these machines surface very often. It needs some work as well, as the interior is largely unfinished at the moment, and the floor pans and rockers are rusty and in need of replacement. Regardless, the car does come with a running 1993 Taurus wagon as a parts donor, all the original interior bits, and a set of new rockers.
The MT5 in this case has been transformed into a tribute of sorts to the “Family Truckster” that starred in National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation, which is interesting in that Dick’s Sporting Goods created the same thing this past holiday season for a commercial. However, the new owner of this Ford Taurus may want to return it to its original glory, given its rarity and historical prominence.
The Taurus MT5 was offered in wagon form in 1986 and 1987, while a sedan came along in 1988. Those models were the only first-generation Taurus examples that could be had with a manual transmission, aside from the SHO – in this case, a five-speed gearbox paired with the 2.5L four-cylinder engine. It’s unclear how many Ford Taurus MT5 wagons were built in total, but many believe that number is somewhere in the hundreds. As such, one day, examples like this one may very well become prized – and potentially valuable – collectibles.
Comments
Collectible as a corroded penny. Rarity does not correlate to value in this example of mediocrity.
Don’t know about the vinyl wood though. It kind of runs counter to the whole aero idea.
Owner of that car really needs to put down the crack pipe. As has been said many times, rare does not always mean valuable. This thing is a rotted POS with no interior, almost 300K miles, and he wants $8500 for it? Take off that last zero and you might have a shot at selling. No wonder it’s been on FB for over 9 months.
Does the $8,500 include the tree?
The MT5 was a unicorn. I think Ford was going after Volvo and SAAB owners.
Oy Vey.
As an owner of an original 1986 MT5 sedan unless this thing comes with an original red carpet warranty, beware. Mine blew the 2.5L head gaskets on a semi-annual basis – I drove a lot of Ford rental cars over the length of that lease. I am beyond impressed anyone squeaked nearly 300K out of one of them.
Aside from the engine they were fantastic vehicles, the interior was nicer than any other domestic car, especially the door panels. The chassis was super solid for the time, the transmission had a nice action, ride and handling were all superb. 90HP isn’t much, though, so any excitement from the manual transmission is pretty muted.