LexFather

The real rock: Taurus just won't die off

Ford's best-selling car continues to be popular among corporate fleets and business travelers.

Jerry Garrett / New York Times

May 17, 2006

Ford has been trying to bury the Taurus, but, like the Undead in a zombie movie, the car keeps rising from the grave.

The euthanasia process has been made more difficult by the fact that the Taurus, which was expected to be comatose by now, is still showing up for work. Is it possible that this old warhorse remains Ford's best-selling passenger car?

"I guess it is," said George Pipas, a company spokesman, when asked if the Taurus' estimated 71,000 sales in the first four months of 2006 meant that it was still the most popular Ford car. (The F-150 pickup is the company's top seller overall.)

What's more, the Taurus has been available only to fleet customers, including rental agencies, since Jan. 1. "Taurus has been particularly popular with our business travelers," said Richard Broome, vice president for corporate affairs at Hertz. "It's been a reliable workhorse for us."

Taurus sales totaled 180,000 last year, but 15 percent went to retail customers. With a sticker price of $21,830 nicely equipped ($22,980 with leather seats), most appear to have been sold.

"They don't stay on our lots very long either," said Broome of Hertz, whose company sells used models after they are retired from the rental fleet. Hertz Car Sales now offers 2006 models in the $14,000 to $15,000 range and 2005s for $11,000 to $13,000. Since Hertz had bought the cars at a sizable fleet discount, Broome said they held their value well.

Ford announced last year that it was discontinuing the Taurus (and its near-twin, the Mercury Sable) and pulling the plug on the life-support machine: The cars would get no more styling changes, no more advertising or promotional support, no more sales incentives, no more retail customers. But while the Sable died last year, the Taurus soldiers on as a favorite of corporate fleets.

Through the end of April, the car was still being produced at a rate of more than 18,000 a month at an Atlanta-area plant that is on a list of factories to be closed. "We will be on that pace, more or less, at least through the second quarter and into the third quarter," Pipas said. "After that, it is TBD."

This withering away seems an inglorious end for a midsize sedan that was the nation's best-selling car in 1992-96 (the last American-brand model to earn that distinction). The Taurus has now been Ford's sales leader longer than the celebrated Model T.

Through April, total production of the Taurus, which made its debut in 1985 as an '86 model, neared 7.5 million cars, with the Sable adding another 2.1 million. As of April 3, all new Tauruses are called 2007 models. (There are no plans for an '08.)

These cars will eventually move from corporate fleets to used car lots. Keep an eye out -- in a small way, these cars will be historic even if they are never collectible.

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iTrader: (1)

The taurus was actually advanced for its time... larger and rounded, more aerodynamic than other cars of the time. And I think it had overhead cam engines where other cars mostly did not...

Trexus

So after 2007 so long Tauras, may you finally rest in peace...