The original Ford Taurus first appeared as a 1986 model, going through three generations and nearly 10 million sales (counting the Mercury Sable) before getting the axe in October of 2006. That made 2007 the final model year for the “real” Taurus, and I’ve found one of these rare cars in a New Orleans self-service junkyard.
Ford halted retail sales of the Taurus on the first day of 2006, shifting it to fleet-only availability until the final example built was sold to Chick-fil-A founder Truett Cathy on October 27, 2006.
The driver’s door latch mechanism was broken, so I couldn’t take a look at the build tag and see the assembly date for this car (this is a common problem with junkyard vehicles). The 206xxx sequence number in the VIN indicates very late production, though, meaning this car likely was built in October of 2006. Note that the fourth VIN character is H, which means this car was one of the few ’07 Tauruses to get optional side airbags.
I couldn’t get the hood latch to work, either, but all the 2006 and 2007 Tauruses got the ancient 3.0-liter Vulcan pushrod V6. Power was rated at 153 horsepower and 185 pound-feet, and the transmission was a mandatory four-speed automatic.
The final year for a manual transmission in the non-SHO Taurus was 1989, while the last year for a three-pedal SHO was 1995.
The Taurus was the best-selling passenger car in the United States for the 1992 through 1996 model years,
The Mercury-badged twin of the original Taurus, the Sable, managed to hang on through 2005. The final Taurus wagons were 2005 models as well.
There was much wailing and gnashing of teeth over the demise of the Taurus, which was still selling reasonably well in the middle 2000s despite its antiquated design.
The replacement for the Taurus sedan was the Five Hundred, which was built on a modified version of the Volvo S80’s platform, and debuted as a 2005 model; the old Montego name was dusted off for the Mercurized version. The Taurus wagon’s replacement was the Freestyle.
Then, what the hell, Dearborn decided to revive the Taurus and Sable names for 2008. The Five Hundred became the Taurus, the Freestyle became the Taurus X and the Montego became the Sable.
On that subject, the first press loaner car I ever received was one of those first New Sables; my review of it was never published (due to long-forgotten office-politics squabbles with and among Jalopnik and Gawker brass). One of these days I’ll do a 2008 Sable Junkyard Find and mix in my pretty Bay Area shots of that car. Maybe I’ll find that very Sable in a junkyard!
The New Sable only lasted through 2009, but the New Taurus held on until 2019 (after which it was replaced with… I dunno, some kind of truck-shaped vehicle).
Because the Taurus name was just so good, it was used on a Chinese-market car built on the same platform as the Fusion from the 2016 through 2022 model years.
And hey! The Taurus name isn’t gone yet, because Ford still applies it to Mondeos sold in the nations of the Cooperation Council for the Arab States of the Gulf. Why couldn’t Ford have kept the far superior Mainline model name alive instead?
This car has a New Orleans “Brake Tag” from March of last year, meaning it was a runner until very recently. I think the ideal New Orleans car is a Rolls-Royce Silver Spirit, by the way.
The mashed left fender and body rust must have doomed it.
Rich Business Dude admires the luxurious interior of the 2006 Taurus SE*.
*Some suspension of disbelief required.
Let’s go back to a couple of decades earlier, to a time when the Taurus really was the future.
[Images: The Author]
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