Hardly anyone on this board is old enough to remember this, but when the Ford Taurus first came out...

Hardly anyone on this board is old enough to remember this, but when the Ford Taurus first came out, the body design was so new, and yes so radically different than any other car that had ever been made, RoboCop used one. The car really was a 180 degree departure from anything else on the road, a totally futuristic design.

Other urls found in this thread:

youtube.com/watch?v=VqfWPEjs1DE
twitter.com/SFWRedditGifs

The late 80s - early 90s brought much needed radical change to American auto design.

hmmm

its not because it was a radical futuristic design

it was only used because Ford paid good money for new product placement

Would explain why GM got shit on so hard.

interesting, how are the Taurus and the EA falcon different?

>so radically different than any other car that had ever been made
Maybe in fatburger Murrika where they still sold literal boxes by the '90s.

Town Cars did not look like this by the 90s.

1989 to be precise, which is still at least a decade after they should've stopped looking like this.

>implying pre-90s Town Cars aren't superior

At what, feeling 20 years outdated?

woah, you like fatburger too?

Oh shit, was that the same movie where they had the Chevy Lumina police vans, or was that a different one?

Man the 80s were great for being a kid.

wasnt it one of the first (American at least) cars to have molded headlights?

>tfw they tried to force the same meme onto the revived taurus in rebootcop'a promo material

I mean, I like the new taurus, but it isnt nearly as big a deal designwise as the original was

Town Cars were boxes on wheels all the way to '97. Not EXACTLY like that, but close enough.

Close. First American car to have replaceable bulbs in a separate housing (instead of sealed-beams) was the Lincoln Mark VII in '84, after Lincoln petitioned for the government to change the headlight rules because they were so far behind Europe's. Same company, different division.

I 'member
Mom drove a dustbuster Transport, I drove in it for my learners and driver's exam, look back on it fondly
Taurus = FWD
Falcon = RWD
Not in this one, I know the one you're thinking of but can't recall the name

I actually owned one, it had a V6 and a bench seat with a column shifter. Sort of scary to drive, the nose starts to lift at highway speeds. Seating 6 people in a sedan was neat though.

The Taurus was a FWD midsize with an I4 or a V6.

I secretly love those, they're straight and boxy but still flush and sleek. Just don't like the sealed beams and afterthought bumpers and vinyl roofs of earlier ones.

Seeing as he can no longer fuck his wife it only makes sense he'd drive a fwd cuckbox

early 90's was truly the peak of American Car design.

>still using 3 Box design for full sized sedans
>design was still boxy, but with rounded edges to give off a sleek look
>headlights were molded to the shape of the car to better increase the sleekness of the look, but were still simple designwise, basically just rectangles that curved around the side

Mid 90's it all started going to shit as everything became cheapo jellybeans.

The only car to come out of the 90's still looking good were the Crown Vic and Grand Marquis, who's transition from the aero body to the whale body strangely made them more oldschool looking than they were before.

The Town car remained shit though, sadly.

Call me crazy but they had it right with the original headlight laws. Sealed beams burned out sure and they made it harder to design swoopy cars but at least glass doesn't turn into faded yellow bullshit like plastic light housings do.

>The only car to come out of the 90's still looking good were the Crown Vic and Grand Marquis, who's transition from the aero body to the whale body strangely made them more oldschool looking than they were before.
It's because the Marquis always looked old school with that thick C-pillar and full width taillight reflectors. The Crown Vic got the same roofline in '98 with the update to the whale body, older ones look a lot like the Caprice with the bubble-roof; Marquis looked pretty much exactly the same from the fenders to the trunklid from '92 to 2011 (and for the most part are exactly the same- doors, windows, and glass are interchangeable every year from 92 to 2011 and fenders are the same for all aeros and all 03+ whales). Sucks that from 03 onwards they had to use more and more Crown Vic parts so they just look like a CV with a slatted grille instead of the nicer look they had earlier.

>The Town car remained shit though, sadly.
IMO the TC was great up until '98 at which point it went right off a fucking cliff headlong into soap-bar abomination territory.

>at least glass doesn't turn into faded yellow bullshit like plastic light housings do.
The only reason manufacturers use plastic is safety and/or cheapness. There are lots of Euro-spec cars with replaceable bulbs, but glass housings- one example that comes to mind is Volvo 240s which, once the facelift did away with the old single-round or double-square sealed beam headlights, the US got plastic headlight covers (the ones that are notoriously prone to yellowing, as seen on every single US-spec 240 still around) while Europe used glass covers that not only worked better but also didn't yellow. Both styles use plain 9003/H4 halogen bulbs.

we the future baby

I need a first gen sho in my life

That's the whole point of 80's fullsize caddy's and lincoln's

I want one of these so fucking bad. They're unfortunately becoming hard to find now.

I always loved that full width lightbar. that shit was future as fuck.

why hasn't anyone ever done something like that again

Did you know Ford hated the fact their car starred in such a violent film?

Another fun fact... the lightbar atop the car was pucked specifically for that car for the exact same reason. Police lights at the time used halogen lights and chain-driven reflectors.

...another 180 degree departure from anything else on the road, a totally futuristic design.

>Trying to outnerd a Robocop nerd

grand prix/am tried to copy it but it looked like ass

I'm pretty sure that in 1987 some police departments that could afford it already had Whelen strobe ligtbars on their cars. Whether it was before or after this movie aired is another thing.

Was the glass/plastic thing a US safety mandate?

How was the Cadillac Eldorado able to run glass lamps through 2002?

You're aware cars can be good without being outdated, and that by the '80s technology existed that made cars comfortable AND handle reasonably well? The yesterdayness of those shitbarges can only have been a sales argument to complete retards, because to everyone else they were merely proof of Detroit's laziness and cheapness.

I think vehicle codes prohibit it nowadays.

>FWD
wow, revolutionary
youtube.com/watch?v=VqfWPEjs1DE

Eldos have glass headlights?

Yes, every Eldorado from 1952/53-2002 had glass lamps.

its looks similar to a rolls royce or bently from the same era

Rolls-Royces already looked more modern than that in 1980. Everything apart from the grille is smoothened, the tech is far more modern, and it's not a fat lumpy barge riding on a track width from the fucking '60s. The narrow track on American cars for decades is absolutely fucking comical.

>I think vehicle codes prohibit it nowadays.
i hate this meme