When was the last time you thought about the third-generation Ford Taurus SHO? You know, the bubbly one. It’s probably been a while, which goes to show how Ford built one of the rarer sports sedans of the 1990s. With V8 power and front-wheel-drive, it’s a decidedly weird sleeper, but it doesn’t command BMW M5 money or attention. In fact, one just went for $2,705 on Bring A Trailer, although that might not be quite the screaming deal it seems on the surface.
In case you aren’t familiar with Bring A Trailer, it’s a fancy internet auction site where people go to hock vintage Ferraris, Bugatti Veyrons, collectable Porsches, and other cars that reside outside the realm of mortal tax brackets. To see a used Ford Taurus on here is weird, but not entirely unprecedented, as the world’s nicest 2005 Ford Taurus SE brought in an astonishing $12,500 on the site. However, that thing had fewer than 127 miles on the clock from new, whereas this one isn’t exactly bubble-wrapped.
When Ford first launched the Taurus SHO, the result was sensational. With a 3-liter Yamaha-designed quad-cam V6 under the hood, it made similar power to a contemporary Mustang GT but in a far more discreet and practical form. It was the blue oval’s textbook sleeper sedan, produced over two generations with subtle evolution. The second-generation car gained an optional punched-out 3.2-liter V6 mated to an automatic transmission, but it largely stuck to the same recipe as the original.
Then, in 1996, Ford changed the formula. The manual gearbox was gone, as was the incredible V6, although under the hood sat a 3.4-liter quad-cam V8 with a block from Cosworth and heads from Yamaha. The result? An extra 15 horsepower over the old V6, and a new flaw. According to V8SHO.com, the secondary camshaft sprockets were effectively friction-fit, and that didn’t end particularly well. Cam sprockets were known to spin on their camshafts, with disastrous results. The fix? Having these secondary sprockets welded to the camshafts, a relatively pricey fix.
Still, the result was something more akin to a Cadillac STS than a BMW M5 — a reasonably powerful, refined machine that’s more rational debate than knife fight. As Car And Driver put it during a prototype road test:
Still, the only part of the SHO’s polished new upscale personality that does not work is the jittery, clumpy ride on high-frequency pavement breaks. The rest of it – questionable styling aside – is genteel enough to lure luxury-car aspirants who wouldn’t have considered the previous Taurus SHO. As for the fans of the previous car … Ford must be hoping that they have matured, too.
That brings us to the present day, when this 1997 Ford Taurus SHO recently sold on Bring A Trailer for $2,705. On the face of things, that seems like a bargain for a rare and intriguing 1990s sedan with just 86,000 miles on the clock. It has an engine that never went into anything else, styling that’s permanently locked in time, seats that almost look inflatable, and emerald paint. Plus, it’s unique. When was the last time you saw a third-generation Taurus SHO at a car show?
Now, this $2,705 Taurus SHO sports an asterisk because it comes with the mark of the beast — a salvage title. The story goes that this thing was punted hard enough to warrant a branded title in 2000, when it was just three years old. Perhaps that’s why some of the paint on the vehicle is a bit dodgy. However, it’s also worth noting that this hit happened a long time ago, and that enough third-generation Taurus SHOs have died of natural and unnatural causes that this salvage title car is still quite rare.
If you’re looking for something to keep forever, this Taurus SHO isn’t a bad choice. It’s cheap, it’s unique, and it’s in good enough cosmetic shape to be a fair-season driver. However, that salvage title, combined with the third-generation car’s somewhat limited appeal, would make it a difficult vehicle to sell on in the future. So, what do you say? Is this Taurus SHO a great deal, or a terrible one?
[Hat-tip to Takuro Spirit!]
(Photo credits: Bring A Trailer)
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I hated the blobby styling of these when they were new. Now it looks refreshing and it doesn’t look pissed off at me like the over styled new messes on the roads do now. The oh so mid nineties green is the perfect color for this car. The radio design was a problem on these. These have grown on me. I’d drive it without feeling embarrassed. I still find it’s mercury Sable sibling ugly, though.
If it runs without any emojis lit up on the dashboard, then yea its worth it. Nothing wrong with relatively cheap reliable transportation, even the salvage won’t be an issue as a daily.
Yeah. I’d buy it.
There is still some evidence that this engine (though somewhat reworked) was the basis of the Volvo B8444S engine in the XC90. Although Volvo denied it, I remember the car mags at the time saying they were related.
It was the basis for the Volvo engine, I thought they were almost identical except for displacement. However, the Volvo version has enough changes that it’s not really the same. For instance, the Volvo has an open deck block while the Ford has a closed deck block.
The Volvo motor has a different defective design regarding the balance shaft that I don’t think was a problem on the Ford motor.
Fun fact. This motor went on to be the bases for the V8 outboard motors made by Yamaha, some racing versions have up to 5.6L of displacment and has the exhaust/intake flipped so the exhaust comes out of the V in the engine.
“ Is this Taurus SHO a great deal, or a terrible one?”
My vote goes to ‘terrible’ mainly for parts, service and durability reasons. Plus the past manual transmission SHO cars were faster.
You’re much better off with a Taurus with the regular 3L 24V V6. Or get a later AWD Ecoboost Taurus SHO which is WAY faster than any past SHO and is a better car in every way.
Also note that the 1996 SHO has a 0-60 time that is similar to the 2013 Taurus with the 2L ecoboost 4cyl. Also a 2008 Taurus with the regular 3.5L V6 is faster
Think about that…
So on that basis, for a bit more money, you are MUCH better off getting a newer Taurus like this 2008 example for only $4000 and with only 84000 miles on it:
https://www.autotrader.com/cars-for-sale/vehicle/703319595
You are spot on.
Truman might like it.
Those plastics, I can feel the coarseness and harshness of them from here.
If you sold weed back in the day, you wanted a SHO.
So. Many. Ovals.
They were ugly then, and they are still ugly now. Check back in another 20 years. Maybe it will age like an Olds Vista Cruiser wagon, but right now. I don’t see it.
For $2,705, I’d buy it, and I’d drive it, but I wouldn’t like it. It would be nothing more than a disposable transportation appliance to me.
the Cam shaft swage design certainly is a major concern with these, that and getting parts. they are interesting to a point, but only 235 HP and not that much torque and FWD. I have seen a 3.9 V6 supercharged v6 Cougar XR7 locally for less money, I would probably go that route over this Family sedan with a v8.
A platter of horse crap wrapped in cabbage leaves. Boring damaged unfinished and when finished nothing particularly appealing.
Literally over the weekend watching the Mecum auction talking about whats gonna be our generations superbird lol
that would be an interesting Criteria maker for the discussion. Are you talking rare homolgomation cars that nobody really thinks are that attractive? But have performance chops? Or rare and not worth much cars that are suddenly the exact opposite, while also being fast for the time? I would say the Syclone’s Typhoons, and the 1989 only Turbo TA would be candidates.
the only criteria was at some point in its value curve we could have bought it cheap and then sold a couple decades later for an exorbitant sum.
Buick Grand National gets my vote. At the time, they were mildly popular for being a “weird” Buick, then totally forgotten, now getting to unobtainium status fast.
that one was brought up as a “i think we missed the boat” one.
They were always kind of rare air for many of us who were teens in the 90’s. you could get a relatively cheap F body even with a V8 of some sort for cheap back then, but the GN’s were not often beat up enough to be Teen money cheap. I think they were always low enough production to be sort of rare and priced as such, but the Regal they are based on, and the Olds, and the Monte Carlo of the same basic shape, those were reliable enough and sold in high enough volume that they were cheap used cars in the 90’s.
I do recall my mom getting a 1987 regal T-Type as a rental loaner when she got into an accident. I had no idea at the time that Buick even offered a grand National in sheep’s clothing until I heard the turbo spool and she accidentally one wheel pealed that thing across an intersection.
I had a barber back in the late ’90s who drove a Regal GS (the supercharged one). He loved it for its complete sleeper appeal, esp. as by then, the original aura that the Grand National provided Buick was fading.
This was a terrible car then and remains so today. Watch those rear strut mounts as they have the longevity of a kleenex in a thunderstorm.
I never liked that generation of Taurus, or the facelifted version that followed. Knew several people who had them, and spent many hours behind the wheel of two of them. They weren’t good to drive, and I can’t see more power making it much better. They just felt archaic, and not in a good way. By 100k miles they were all falling apart with collapsed rear suspensions. I wish I could like this one more because of its uniqueness…but I really can’t. I have said for years that those Tauruses are probably my least favorite car ever built, and they still are.
Nothing can be done to make a Taurus a good car. I say that as a former Pep Boys mechanic where I worked on these constantly. Not SHO’s, but a Taurus SHO is still a Taurus.
They are gross looking vehicles. My ex bought an ugly, base ’98 Taurus with 80k miles at an auto auction way back in the day (around 2001) for 3 grand. When he bought it, his dad (a mechanic) rebuilt the front-end suspension to replace some worn-out components. He was a great mechanic because that Taurus drove super smooth, way better than any Taurus rental I had ever driven. After the ex got a different vehicle, he gave the Taurus to his mom, who eventually augmented it with a used 2005 Taurus in 2006. She kept the 98 Taurus, and even with way more miles it still drove way smoother than the 05 Taurus. She smoked Decade brand cigarettes, so the 05 smelled better inside than the 98 for a week or so. Now, I always associate middle aged women who chain smoke the cheapest of cheap cigarettes with Ford Taurus’s.
Im getting ticking time bomb vibes from this one
It is probably more fun drive than the average $2,700 car, and it looks presentable. It isn’t the most desirable SHO and probably has little collector value, but it would be a unique and fun daily driver. I think the price is appropriate for what it is.
It’s a decent price in the current market, and a nice color! I’d definitely consider it for a family member who needs a car, if it hadn’t been sold already.
“When was the last time you thought about the third-generation Ford Taurus SHO? You know, the bubbly one.”
I try not to think of bubble-styled, third-generation Ford Tauruses (Tauri?), ever.
Sorry, but even in this trim package, it fails to spark joy.
Absolutely loved my Gen 2 SHO – ’94 3.0L 5 speed. It was the ultimate sleeper. Mine was fully loaded w/ moonroof, leather and blackout window trim. I still remember those seats! The ONE car I wish I had never sold (21st century rear facing child seat did not fit). Bought a used ’00 300M 3.5L that was far more spacious and ran great (when it ran).
I had the (dis-)pleasure of replacing an engine on one of these at the dealer i worked at because, as the article stated, the camshaft sprocket is press-fit and literally every single one of these is at-risk for the cam gear slipping/jumping time. I think the car we did it on had only like 40k-50k on it, and this would have been about 2001.
This generation just wasn’t nearly as good, or good of a value as the previous gen SHO. What’s odd is that Ford even bothered making this Yamaha V8 engine at all. They already fit the 32v 4.6L V8 sideways in the Lincoln Continental, so that motor (or the 2v version) might have been possible on the SHO.
But, if they were keeping with what the SHO really should have been, they should have just done some tweaking of the 3.0 Duratec V6 with Yamaha (little increase in displacement, change the cams, cool-ass intake runners, tune for premium fuel) and still offered the manual transmission.
The price for this one isn’t bad, it just isn’t desirable. I’d rather have a 1st/2nd gen SHO manual or get an ecoboost SHO (as long as the water pump had been changed correctly, and other maintenance had been done (i.e. PTU fluid).
With all this being said, those Yamaha 60 degree V8’s do sound really cool with a good exhaust.
“But, if they were keeping with what the SHO really should have been, they should have just done some tweaking of the 3.0 Duratec V6 with Yamaha (little increase in displacement, change the cams, cool-ass intake runners, tune for premium fuel) and still offered the manual transmission.”
+1
That stupid V8 was a mistake. They should have take the opportunity to show off what the 3L Duratech was capable of. And the SVT team Ford had (which got 200hp out of the 2.5L version of that engine) could have done the work.
The Jag version of the Duratec made as much as 240hp… so I think the SVT guys could have achieved at least that and with a manual, would have resulted in a much more desirable SHO.
Yeah the 3.0 duratec’s were good motors, I don’t remember many issues with them. I did see one of them jump timing like the V8 SHO motor, but I think it was a very specific defect and not super common. I also saw someone go somewhere between 10k-20k between oil changes (Escape) and the thing just kept chugging along.
SVT/Yamaha could have done something here.
I want to like it for its genuine weirdness, but this generation Taurus represents one of Ford’s quality and styling low points. It’s an amorphous green blob with a ticking time bomb under the hood. Rarity does not necessarily equal desirability.
I’d hoon it.
Back in the late 90s I had a friend whose older parents picked one of these up as their “retirement vehicle”. Things started breaking not too long after the warranty was up, and I helped my friend work on the more simple, normal Taurus problems. What we couldn’t fix was that the V8 was never used in anything else and parts were practically unobtainable for it back when these were still relatively new. The car sounded good, rode reasonably well, but ultimately they traded it in on a Lincoln Continental and were much happier.
I drove my friend’s SHO at a racetrack. It is a really good engine… in a Taurus.
Oh, and for the SHO-stans. Super High Output. I don’t think that means what you think it means.
Are those door decals OEM?
I kinda think they must be b/c they’re still there at this point, but I don’t recall seeing any in the wild back then. But these were rare enough as it was, so not a big sample size for sure.
I don’t think they are OEM. I don’t recall ever seeing them on one before but it wouldn’t surprise me if they were some kind of dealer installed option out of the old Ford SVT catalogue.
They do make this car a bit of a SHO-off. (I’ll just SHO myself out now…)
SHO nuf.
I doubt it, they don’t seem to be the right typeface for the SHO. You can kinda compare them in the article here with the engine bay pic, if it were from Ford it would definitely be styled differently. It doesn’t even look like something Ford would have had for the revived Ecoboost-powered SHO.
Absolutely not on those decals. I’ve owned a few SHOs over the years. The bubble Taurus was the absolute worst Taurus, SHO or otherwise. You don’t typically make the next gen of a performance car worse than the one before it, excepting the malaise era. But Ford sure did with this SHO. Slower, automatic only and ugly as sin.
My current SHO is a 2013. It is in no way like the original. It’s fat, automatic and AWD. But it is damn nice and seriously fast with a tune. The water pump/timing chain issue is unfortunate and costly. But I get a 12.7 quarter out of this thing and it’s a great highway cruiser.
The best review snippet I remember from that gen Taurus SHO was along the lines of “she’s big, but when you punch it, she squats down and then she goes!” Makes me happy just thinking of it.