Ford Taurus Resposible For Ugly

[Rusi]

I was creeping the 90's Japanese car thread and a lot of people were talking about how awesome 90's cars were technically and aesthetically. And I agree that the 90's was a great decade for car design and then something happened. All the cars started to turn into ovals. Agressive lines were replaced by melted folds and for a while every car looks like it has been slighty smooshed. I think we are only now starting to get away from it.

Long story short I blame this on the third generation Taurus which won critical acclaim for its' design but in hindsight we all know that was a mistake.

Prove me wrong.

 

[TB]

The Taurus, ugly or not, has nothing to do with GT5. Thread moved.

 

[Rotary Junkie]

I only partially agree. They were already melting well before the 3rd gen Taurus, it's just that the 3rd gen is the most obvious one because they made millions of the damn things, most of which are still on the road by some miracle.

 

[Eric.]

I only partially agree. They were already melting well before the 3rd gen Taurus, it's just that the 3rd gen is the most obvious one because they made millions of the damn things, most of which are still on the road by some miracle.

And my dad's is doing 80 miles five days a week with 220k miles and counting.

 

[Sniffs]

you've got your timing wrong. it was the ORIGINAL taurus. after that point, they turned into "melting soap bars" as one writer at Motor Trend put it. this was all in the name of "mandated fuel economy increase" ideas we dealt with in the late eighties. Europeans promptly fell in love with all those curves, americans promptly fell into Nausea. looks like it happened up there, to, eh? (apologies in advance)
they THEN figured out they had to redo the Gearboxes and everything else to go with it.

 

[dylansan]

In my opinion the really angular boxy designs of the 80s were much worse.
1987:

1997:

I much prefer the latter of these two.

Some designs of the 90s are horrendously melted, but some designs of the 80s are horrendously boxy. Yet, in both decades there were some designers that turned either the angular or rounded designs into really great cars. For example:
1985 and 1995 RX7: (The '85 attracts me slightly more)

]
1987 and 1997 M3: (I much prefer the '87)

Some misses: (in my opinion)
1985 Mercury Sable

1987 Nissan Z: (not awful, but my least favorite Z and probably the least recognizable)

1998 Volvo S70: (I love Volvo, but going from rectangle to rounded-rectangle is not progress, it's hideous)

1995 Mazda MX-3: (AN example of oval gone overboard)

1998 Chevy Lumina: (blah...)