Vanilla is the most popular ice cream flavor and I can’t think of a more vanilla vehicle than a 1995 Ford Taurus GL. That’s not to say that they aren’t great cars because they were and still are. But, if it isn’t an SHO model they don’t often show up here on Barn Finds. This nice example is listed here on craigslist in Lansdale, Pennsylvania and they’re asking $3,500. Thanks to Pat L. for sending in this tip!
For the record, I love vanilla but it has gotten a bad rap over the decades as far as being somewhat bland and flavorless. The Ford Taurus was a monumental seller of a car for years and years, decades in fact. There is nothing wrong with making a great car that may or may not be on the not-super-exciting-to-drive side of the spectrum. For tens of millions of people, having a reliable, useful vehicle is exciting and that’s why Ford sold so many of these cars from 1986 through 2019! That’s a long run.
We have seen a few Taurus SHO versions here and those are great, maybe like vanilla bean ice cream with those little dark things in it. No, they’re even more exciting than that. The seller says that this great-looking Taurus was their grandmother’s car and they recently inherited it but they don’t have a need for another car so that’s why it’s for sale.
The interior photos are a mixed bag but what is shown in more close-up photos does look fantastic. This car only has 36,800 miles on it and it looks great. I wonder what the reaction will be to a non-SHO Taurus here, though. Good? Bad? They say that there is no rust and it was never driven in the snow.
The engine is Ford’s 3.0L V6 which had 140 horsepower and 165 ft-lb of torque. It’s not exactly the 220-hp of an SHO but this isn’t a car for doing much more than just enjoying a leisurely, relatively trouble-free commute and it did that very well. Have any of you owned a non-SHO Taurus?
If the mileage is correct and everything checks out mechanically and body-wise that asking price is more than reasonable
This would be a fair deal for a daily driver.Those Tauruses
were almost always my choice for an affordable rental car.
We bought a ’90 Taurus wagon with low miles out of an
estate sale for under wholesale book value from the owner’s son.
We had it for almost two years,& I was less impressed with it the
longer we had it.
When we put it up for sale,a couple walking by offered me $200
less than we paid for it,so we basicly owned it for free.
This is one of those cars that you really need an extended
warranty on.
3 liter needs not much to maintain, the SHO needed 70.000 mile expensive service, 3.8 blew head gaskets, had a wagon, 3.0 bought for 400.00 from animal rescue, was donated, tunes up, air charged drove til 150k sold for 400.00 to a guy who drove it 3 more years over 200k when tranny went and he junked it for 200.00
Almost a shame to daily drive this thing. I love these Taurii, we had several of them.
My son had a ’95 like this one, 66K Granny car. He paid 1K for it, and drove it for about 5 or 6 years. You should have seen this thing by the time he was done with it….no bumpers, every panel dented, headliner sagging, trunk loaded with all sorts of shit. His employer made him park it off site. He replaced it with a Grandpa car 2005 Taurus 70K. He drove the ’95 to the scrap yard.
Ford sold a boatload of these over the years. Thus there are plenty of us who will have had experience with them. My experience (beyond my SHO) was with the 2002 my folks had. It was their last car, in the same nondescript goldish-beige. It did exactly what they, being in their 80’s, needed in a car.
The “vanilla” comment is very appropriate, they were common cars for common folks. Nice to see one so well-preserved.
That goldish beige color is also known as “Old ManTan”.
I owned a white -91 base model while living in Sweden. There it was very exotic with the bench seat and column shifted auto. We were to have our first kid and my wife made it clear that I was not going to transport a baby in my -66 NSU Typ110. So I sold the NSU and bought that Taurus for $2000. It was a great daily driver. Smooth, comfy, reliable.
One day I got hit by a city transit bus and despite it being all that driver’s fault I was only offered 50% of the repair cost from their insurance company. I was rather miffed until when I went to have the damages inspected and found that the insurance guy was the husband of one of my wife’s friends. Suddenly the repair cost was deemed to be $4400, so 50% wasn’t so bad. Spent $500 fixing it, drove it for a while longer and then sold it for $2200. Probably among the cheapest miles I’ve ever driven.
The Fiat Tempra Station Wagon that I bought with the money from the Taurus was perhaps less of a stellar buy!
Man if it it was in Oregon it would be in my driveway. lol
“I can’t think of a more vanilla vehicle than a 1995 Ford Taurus GL.”
It’s remarkable that a car that was somewhat radical when introduced for 1986 – both for styling and firm chassis tuning – had become “meh” by 1995. This just goes to show how quickly the industry changes, and how poor Ford is at following up a big hit.
What do you mean?? Don’t you remember the ’96 Taurus??
That was sarcasm by the way…
My sister has the wagon version of this. She bought it new and it has been sitting in her backyard for years. If someone can tell me how to post a picture here, I’ll share one.
Love it, brings back memories of my teenage days. Parents had a 1990 with the 3.0L in this color then bought a teal green 1992 with the 3.8L. The 1992 sure felt fast on the back roads to me at 17! Got two tickets in that car and some trouble.
Thanks Scotty for the walk down memory lane
Bought a Black 89 LX new that was loaded. Loved that car.
I live in the seller’s area. Removal of the a/c system keeps it from being a viable daily driver here.
Bland? Maybe, but 1000% better than the model that followed it in 1996….an oval nightmare.
I came for a GM family and somehow ended up with a maroon ‘93 in college. I’m not sure what trim level it was but it had a maroon interior and bucket seats with a center console, which seems to have been really rare. The car looked alright back then but I never quite felt safe due to its driving dynamics, especially in snow. Transmission are itself to pieces, which seems to have been a common issue with Fords.
I have owned 2 Taurus’:
-a dark grey 1989 Sedan – had it for 3 years on a lease.
– a tan/gold 2003 wagon which was loaded – wish I’d kept this one… I sold it at 104,000 miles in 2017- never had any mechanical problems…
Reliable, comfortable transportation. My Daughters 97 just rolled 40K, bought it at 17K 6 years ago. It’s better equipped and has had no significant issues. Still has original brakes. But the timing sensors have bad habit of failing. $60 fix. Pray the radiator or AC doesn’t need work.
My ’91 SHO was this color. Just about as stealth as it gets.
In 1992 a GL was my first new car. Traded it for a Focus ZX5 in 2002. Never had any problem with the 3.8 but about twice a year something would go wrong which usually ended up costing around $500. Things that never happened to me before went wrong on this car. Brake light switch, speedometer cable started making noise and had to be replaced, heater blowers seemed to last a few years and then got noisy (replaced three times) and most of the sway bar links broke – one at a time. When one of the front ones went they replaced both with a new plastic version that worked fine. There are probably other things I’ve forgotten about. With all that, it never stranded me and I considered it a good car. I’m 6’3″ and this was the only car that I could move the seat further back than I needed. The Focus was almost trouble free and I gave it to a friend in 2016. It had 169,000 miles then and he’s still driving it.
Ugly then, ugly now.
Don’t jinx me, I love them, always bought them for runners, when I sold used cars back in the 90s sold 2/3 of them a week, nicely optioned under 80,000 miles sold cheap, bought cheap, wholesale auction dealer only, in Trenton NJ, actually own a 2007 now, w 53,000 one owner miles sunroof leather loaded car, saves my Mercedes from job related bumps and bruises and northeast winters, my friends laugh, I pull my Benz out in the spring, I laugh, no salt, no dirt no detail needed, just sand from the beaches in my trunk, love my Taurus
Had a ’93, the same color and engine. Good car.
Wow, a Tore-ass. Really? Who the hell cares?
Well Dave,
It’s sometimes fun to walk down memory lane you see. If you don’t enjoy the trip, skip it.
Good in snow…
My wife had the twin sister of this car and after 144k miles, the transmission decided to start acting up. It killed my wife to get rid of it, but we traded it for a 2011 Impala with 35K on the odometer. My wife still wishes she had the old Ford. I have to admit, it was a great car and was trouble free from 1996 when we bought it used, til 2013 when the tranny started to go.
I thought it was neat that Ford put larger and easier to reach radio buttons up on the dash, maybe that was them admitting that their “chiclet” factory radios were a PIA