1992 Ford Taurus Wagon Test Drive
Taurus sparked a revolution in American family-car styling when it hit the streets in 1985 and its lines proved fresh enough to survive nearly seven years without alteration. For 1992, Ford changed every inch of exterior sheetmetal except the doors.
Ford said the new exterior appearance was designed to build on the existing Taurus styling and sure enough, the changes may have gone unnoticed without a side by side comparison with a 1991 model. Four-door sedan and 5-door wagon body styles carried over in L, GL, and LX trim, with the SHO version again exclusive to the 4-door. Basically, the nose of the ’92 was more tapered than before and the headlamp lenses had a thinner profile. The sedan’s rear window sloped more, the tail got new, higher set lamps, and the trunklid protruded aft to form a subtle lip.
A front passenger side airbag was a new option for Taurus’ redesigned dashboard. It fit above the glove-box and joined the driver’s airbag that was standard since 1990.
Taurus was not the style leader in ’92 that it was in 1986, a big factor in its early high success, and the 1992 redo redesign was subtle enough that you may have had to look twice to tell the new from the old. But the 1992 still offered plenty of reasons to buy, most notably that new optional passenger-side airbag, something no other car matched in this price class. Returning attractions included good workmanship and interior space, fluent handling, available ABS, and a good performance/economy blend.
In all, Taurus remained the cream of the domestic mid-size crop, but was now a step ahead in key safety features.
TV’s Patrick Duffy Compares the 1986 Ford Taurus to the F16, Space Shuttle and IBM Computer
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