Although in terms of sales rankings and brand recognition, Ford Motor is slightly inferior to the Japanese Sanjie, But the Ford of that year can be described as unlimited scenery. In the 90s, Ford owned a number of car brands such as Lincoln, Jaguar Land Rover, Mazda, Aston Martin and Volvo, not only luxury cars, but even supercars, and their strength was leveraged!
In the late 1970s, Ford faced an unprecedented dilemma
But Ford also had difficult times, such as in the late 1970s, when the second oil crisis broke out and the price of oil rose, when Ford had a flagship sedan called the LTD, the full name: Luxury Trim Decor. Equipped with a 5.0-liter large V8 engine, at this time the main fuel-saving Japanese car seems to see the business opportunity, take advantage of the virtual, in one fell swoop to win the North American market, until today, Japanese cars in North America sell better than American cars. Therefore, in the context of the outbreak of the oil crisis, the sales of American cars at that time can be described as very little, and there is no profit after less sales, which also hit the American car brand hard, resulting in Ford facing an unprecedented dilemma at that time, and the sense of crisis followed.
Since large displacement and large size cars were not popular in the environment at that time, Ford made a modification to the LTD car, reducing the displacement and size, but still no one bought it, so Ford executives decided to stop the LTD and develop new models.
In 1980, Ford invested $3 billion in the development of new cars, almost all of Ford's excellent team designers brought together, the research and development team led by designer Jack Telnack, every day to brainstorm, sketches one by one, model cars made one after another. In addition, Ford also bought a friendly car back to study, such as the Honda Accord and Toyota Camry, after the final draft found that this model looks ordinary, but this is not a bad thing, to the Chinese market for example, the more in line with most of the aesthetic models, the more it is easy to look ordinary, such as Toyota's Vios, Corolla and Highlander, you say particularly like well, that is not, but to give you a car to open it is still very happy, can not pick out a big fault, this is a biggest advantage.
After investing a lot of human and financial resources, Taurus was finally born in 1985
In 1985, this hastily polished blockbuster new car was finally unveiled, it is the Ford Taurus, it can be said that the Taurus was born of a sense of mission, equipped with a 3.0-liter V6 naturally aspirated engine codenamed Vulcan, with a maximum horsepower of 142 horses and a maximum torque of 271 Nm. And the original Taurus is also divided into: L, MT-5, GL and LX four models, of which mt-5 is dedicated to the Japanese market, and even in the later stage also launched a 2.5L four-cylinder version, the maximum horsepower of 89 horses, matched with a 5-speed manual transmission. Compared with the 5.0L big V8's LTD has converged a lot, and it can even be said that the words "vigorous miracle, cylinder number and justice" of the American system have been forgotten, but the actual sales are very good. In the second year of its launch, Ford sold more than 200,000 Taurus units, and Ford regained its strength with Taurus. The media and consumers from all walks of life have given a high evaluation to taurus testing in all aspects.
Auto Network Review: Taurus is not only a model of Ford, it is of great significance to Ford
Taurus's hot sales are not only reduced in size and displacement, but also equipped with many interesting details and practical configurations on the body, such as the rear arch is significantly smaller than the front wheel arch, which is designed to obtain a lower wind resistance and more aerodynamic, which is a big breakthrough for the car at that time.
The Taurus currently on sale debuted in August 2019, although the current domestic market sales performance is mediocre, but it is a milestone for Ford, and it is precisely because of its hot sales in that year that we have the Ford we see now, for this model that contributes to the brand, we should pay high respect.