Image courtesy jeff-young-design.com
With a new calendar year, we get to consider a whole new crop of cars that have now passed the quarter-century mark and thus, as many widely consider, officially become classics. But, as we all know, some cars are more deserving of that status than others, so we’re opening up debate over a select group of 1986 model year vehicles, starting with the 1986 Ford Taurus.
As The Henry Ford noted in explaining the selection of a 1986 Taurus for its collection, it’s perhaps the second-most important domestic vehicle of the 1980s, behind the Chrysler minivan. Its Euro-derived shape widely influenced automotive design, and the story of its conception fits perfectly into the mold of corporate groupthink and consumer marketing that shaped and defined the 1980s. Twenty years later, when Ford attempted to replace the Taurus name with the Five-Hundred name, the former’s name recognition proved so powerful that Ford hastily scrapped those plans and switched back to the Taurus name.
Which is all fine and dandy for the historians. It’s always seemed to me that the Taurus epitomized exactly everything that automotive enthusiasts hate about late-model cars, from its bland jellybean looks to its overcomplicated (and, by some accounts, often unreliable) drivetrain. It seemed to be the exact sort of inoffensive, blend-into-traffic commutermobile that people who don’t care one whit about cars will like. Then again, that could just be my opinion. True, plenty of people got geeked about the Taurus SHO (and the Robocop Taurus – don’t forget the Robocop Taurus!), but we’ll address that variant in due time.
So the question we’re left with: Now that the 1986 Ford Taurus is eligible for entry into the AACA’s shows, do you think it deserves a place among the collector cars we’re all familiar with? Do you think that the restoration of Ford Tauruses will shortly commence with fervor? Do you think that people who grew up with these cars will have fond nostalgic memories of them? Or do you think it will be ignored in favor of other cars from that era?
While you ponder that question, check out one of the most vapid and ridiculous car commercials ever. Also, feel free to share your suggestions for other vehicles to include in the Class of 1986.