1995 Ford Taurus wagon

Saw this at an estate sale yesterday. No asking price. Rather, they were auctioning it. The starting bid was $2800, and, at the time we were there, it was up to $2900. The car looked clean and straight. The sign in the front window says "Low Mileage - 60K."

Looked like it could make for inexpensive daily transportation.

 

Hopefully, it had the 3.8 V6 instead of the 3.0.

 

I have no idea.

 

For Driveabilty yes, for repairs no, not that the 3.8 requires more repairs, it just makes any needed repair PITA to do.

 

The 3.8 came standard in Mercury's. The 3.0 standard in the Fords. I had a 90 sedan for a long time and it served me very well. The 3.0 was easy to work on had plenty of power. Only weak point in those cars is the transmission as it usually won't last much past 130,000.

That said.... the car is only worth three grand unless you really want it.

 

I was going to say, $2900 is about the top of the market for one of these things and I like these cars a lot.

No love for the 3.0? I always thought it was a pretty decent engine. I drove a sedan with the 3.8 once and it didn't seem any more powerful than the 3.0. And while I like the 3.8 it does have head gasket issues.

 

When the '84 Colony Park got totaled after owning it maybe 2 weeks, I was basically forced to buy a wagon I didn't really want, and ended up with a '88 (or was is '89...?) Taurus GL wagon with the 3.8. Had decent enough power with the 3.8. Those cloth seats though.......felt like you were sitting on some mohair upholstery that should have been in a '48 Dodge.......

 

This car turned up for sale again at an estate sale today. The sale was being run by the same company that did the earlier one, so apparently the car didn't sell the first time around. I took advantage of the situation to take a much closer look at it, and I have to say, it is one nice car. The bad news, for anyone possibly interested in buying it at least, is that it sold in the 20 minutes or so I was at the sale. I'm glad I got there when I did because had it been 20 minutes later, it wouldn't have been there as the new owner took it away while I was there.

I took many more photos, and those are below. They actually had the hood up this time. The car does have the 3.8 liter engine. It's well optioned with power windows and door locks, air conditioning, trip odometer, cruise control, tilt wheel, rear window defroster, luggage rack, split front seat (I didn't notice if the driver's side was powered--the passenger side was not), and AM/FM/cassette. I don't know if it had a third seat (or was that standard equipment?) as I couldn't open the rear gate as that required the key. No dents, no rust, everything is straight and clean. Just a few minor rubs that are consistent with being now 22 years old. The interior is very clean and non-worn looking, which is consistent with the 60,000 miles on the odometer. The tires looked fine. It just needed a good vacuuming and a little Windex and a rag.

This car is from the six-digit odometer era, so the 60,000 miles (unless it's 1,060,000!) is legitimate. I opened and closed all four doors, and all sounded tight with no rattles or loose parts. I didn't get to hear the car run, but I think somebody got a real nice car that will function well as a daily driver for years to come.

I thought it was interesting that the car sold so quickly. They did not have a fixed price on it, but rather were taking bids and had an opening bid of $1900. I would have thought that the car would have remained at the site until the end of the sale, which was at 1 p.m. today, or about 3 hours after I was there. I figured they'd sell it to whoever had the high bid at that time. But, as I said, the car sold while I was there, so the buyer must have made them an offer they couldn't refuse.

I apologize for the sun glare in some of the photos. The sun was coming directly through the front windshield, which made taking photos in that direction a little iffy.

 

Thanks for taking those pics, Jaunty! Reminds me a lot of our '88 (or'89), which was equipped almost identical, as far as I could tell. Chances are, the driver's half of the front seat was most likely powered. Ford had some kind of 'Popular Equipment Package' at the time, which a lot of these GL models had. Got you the stereo, the PW, the power driver's seat and a few other goodies.

I would have loved our Taurus a lot more had it been equipped with bucket seats and a floor shifter console, but there weren't many of those around, and we were on a time crunch to find another mommy wagon. This one was on our local Ford dealer lot, was in excellent condition, and had low miles. At the time, we should have just bought the bullet and gone with a minivan for a while (which we ended up doing a year or so later anyway...), but, I WANTED A WAGON............

 

We had a '90 Taurus wagon in this exact color scheme. Owned it until 1995, when we traded it on a '95 Pontiac Transport. We really liked the Taurus, but with the kids getting a little older and starting to express opinions as to where they wanted to sit, a minivan worked better, and the kids truly hated riding in the rear-facing third seat. They would usually get carsick. I wish I had taken some photos of it at the time, but who thinks to do that, and I don't have any.

 

Great looking car in what appears to be terrific shape. I'd have no problem driving that thing. I believe the wagons did have a standard third row seat (at least all of the wagons I've seen have had them), but they look about as comfortable as sitting on a couple of sheets of plywood.

 

I'm not sure they were standard. Mine had one, never used it, as the kids were too small then. I think we replaced the Taurus with the '88 Aerostar Eddie Bauer, purchased from the same local Ford dealer. Bought four used vehicles from there over the years, all Fords. Last one was the older daughter's '04 Focus, which she still has.

 

The third seat was optional. I couldn't find a brochure online for '90 or '95 Taurus, but I did find 1993.

Note the last comment at the bottom of the right-most column of photos.