With just under 60,000 miles on the clock, today's Nice Price or No Dice Taurus SHO is criminally underused. That likely means it also hasn't been abused. Let's see if its presentation and price leave us amused.
Aside from the retro rehash of the Z sports car—which no one seems to be buying—Nissan doesn't build any quirky or even halfway interesting cars for the U.S. market right now. To be fair, niche models with low sales are a tough row to hoe for any carmaker these days, and Nissan's financial situation is dire enough that sticking to mainstream crossovers and SUVs is probably the more prudent strategy.
And if we want to see Nissan's wild-haired whimsy, there are plenty of home-market cars from which to choose that are now old enough that the Feds will turn a blind eye to their not meeting safety or emissions standards, leaving them open to private import. We looked at one such quirky car on Wednesday, a 1987 Nissan Be-1 Pike Car, one of just 10,000 built and still looking like a fun time today. At $9,500, it was also one of the cheapest of the small handful of Be-1s for sale in the States, giving it a leg up on the cute car competition, so to speak. That wasn't good enough for the majority of you, however, as the little Nissan paid for its quirkiness and cuteness with an unfortunate 65% 'No Dice' loss.
SHO-enough
Okay, so yesterday's Nissan may have been too little for too much, a factor that its adorableness simply couldn't overcome. What if, however, for just a few bucks more, we could have a legendary American sport sedan with a storied lineage and an amazing backstory about how it came to be?
This 1994 Ford Taurus SHO is from late in the game of the second take—actually a light refresh of the first generation—of what was at the time one of America's best-selling and most iconic cars. The three-letter SHO, or Super High Output, appendage to the Taurus name indicates that the car has a V6 engine under the hood designed and built by Japan's Yamaha.
Based on Ford's OHV Vulcan motor, the four-cam, 24-valve SHO motor was intended to power both the hot Taurus model and a mid-engined sports car that Ford canceled at the last minute. In its original guise, the SHO V6 was offered with a 3.0-liter displacement, producing 220 horsepower and 200 pound-feet of torque. This first iteration offered only a five-speed manual transaxle, and like all Tauruses (Tauri?), it was front-wheel drive.
Bigger is better?
That manual-only approach hurt SHO sales because while many people enjoy a full corral under their right foot, most would prefer their left foot do nothing. To address this, Ford added a four-speed automatic option to the refreshed Taurus SHO in 1993 and bumped the Yamaha V6's displacement to 3.2 liters, remapping its power curve to better match the automatic's shift points. Horsepower stayed the same, but torque was bumped to 215 lb-ft.
This SHO has the automatic and the 3.2. It also has its original factory "slicer" wheels, which are side-specific, and the car is loaded to the gills with comfort and convenience options. Naturally, the most important feature on the car, next to the nest of snakes under the hood, is the SecuriCode keypad on the driver's door. That lets owners lock and unlock the car without a key or fob. This is a great feature for anyone leaving the car in long-term parking at the airport or at the beach, since it removes the chance of losing the car keys.
With just 59,804 miles to its name, this SHO must have spent a good bit of its life parked in one place or another. As such, it presents extremely well in the ad's pictures, with the seller touting it as being in "unreal condition." The only noticeable issue on the exterior is some fading of the topcoat on the plastic center caps of those slicer wheels. Other than that, this SHO hides its age admirably.
Be my baby
That get-in-and-go appearance continues in the cabin. According to the seller, this SHO has been "babied since new," and unlike many that you might find on the market, it shows only minor wear on the leather covering its SHO-exclusive front bucket and along-for-the-ride rear bench seats. One odd choice is replacing the factory AM/FM/cassette head unit with an aftermarket CD-capable unit from Kenwood while leaving the factory CD player in the dash.
That's really the only misstep in the cabin, as everything else, including Ford's roly-poly plastics, appears to be in amazing shape.
Per the seller, the car is mechanically sound as well. There are no telltale warnings on the dash, nor any weird noises coming from under the hood. Despite no maintenance history provided and, alarmingly, a factory repair manual stuffed in the trunk, the seller says the car "runs like new" and is "fast as can be!" A clean title closes the car's bona fides.
A true classic
To be honest, the second-generation SHOs, especially those equipped with the bigger mill and auto-ier transaxle, aren't as collectible as their first-generation, manual-only older siblings. That said, these later cars, with the more commonly sought automatic and torquier engine, plus dual airbags and other minor upgrades, are perhaps the ones to have if a driver/show car is the end game.
Now we need to decide whether this amazingly nice edition is worth the $9,900 asking price. As noted, mere moments ago, that's just a few hundred more than yesterday's Nissan, and honestly, this is a lot more car for that money. Plus, the steering wheel is on the correct side for most of us.
But that's just me spitballing here. I want your opinion on this car's collectability and, more importantly, its appeal at that $9,900 price tag. What's your take on this Taurus at that kind of cash? Does that feel like a super deal for a super-high-output fun Ford? Or, at that price, would you issue the verdict that the SHO mustn't go on?
You decide!
Daytona Beach, Florida, Craigslist, or go here if the ad disappears.
Hat tip to RevUnlimiter for the hookup!
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