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By Jason Ang
Photos By Jason Ang
Originally Published June 2000 Issue

What does it mean to be a bestseller? In the Philippines, a best-selling car like the CR-V usually sells about a thousand units per month, or about 12,000 per year. In the U.S. 12,000 per year is pretty much insignificant. Consider the top three selling cars in the U.S.:

Toyota Camry: 448,162 cars sold
Honda Accord: 404, 192
Ford Taurus: 368, 327

Those are truly massive numbers for almost any product.1.2 million burgers are already a lot, but cars! If parked side by side and bumper to bumper, all those cars will be enough to cover the whole City of Mandaluyong! The American public is snapping them up, with no letup. We're already familiar with the Camry and Accord, and we’ve seen that their reputation for reliability and a comfortable driving experience is well-deserved.

How about the Taurus then? This car has yet to be brought out by Ford Philippines. Will it be a worthy addition to the Ford lineup, or should it just stay in America? motioncars decided to take a closer look at Ford’s best-selling passenger car.

The Ford Taurus was introduced in the early 1980s as a wedge-shaped, futuristic sedan. Even Robocop found it good enough to use as a patrol car. For a couple of years, it vied for the top slot with Honda’s Accord. One year it won out, the next the Accord did. However, the Accord was marketed only to end users, while the Ford was also sold to fleets like car rental companies. Its main weapons were its large engine, large interior space and low price; it couldn’t quite beat the Accord in sophistication or styling. 

So for its redesign Ford decided to pull all the stops and do something radical. Out went the old wedge design and in came ovals…lots of them. Perhaps taking the cue from the company’s own logo, Ford designers decided to make the oval the theme for every visible surface on the car. From the side, it’s not a three-box design, but a three-oval. Then the window grouping is also oval, and so is the backlight! Head and tail lamps also follow this pattern. (This was done before the E-class and Corolla went back to discrete oval lights.) Put together, the ovals

 make for a very fish-like appearance. That's not altogether bad: it’s a smooth, organic shape that’s rather soothing to the eyes. I'm not sure that the Ford designers were aiming for soothing, but that’s what they produced.

The Ford Taurus looks more like a beached aquatic animal than any conventional car.  Ford abandoned the angular lines of the previous iteration and went for this rounded, organic look.

The Taurus features a large glass area for improved visibility and comfort.  Rounded roofline infringes on rear headroom.  Sloping trunk lid limits trunk space .  It's a pleasant design, but Ford prioritized form over function.

"Feed me", it seems to be saying.  That can't be all that good, because cars are supposed to say, "Drive me."  Tiny grille and under-bumper openings feed air into the engine compartment.  Four-eyed oval helped set a trend that Mercedes and Toyota soon followed. 

Taillights don't escape the oval treatment.  It's distinctive, but attractive...that's questionable.

 

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