Good morning, and welcome to another Shitbox Showdown! Today, we’re checking out a couple of Dearborn’s efforts from the Nineties that have spent more time parked in the hot sun than they have spent actually going somewhere. But first, let’s see what you made of yesterday’s Love Boats:
Looks like the big Lincoln is sunk, and not just in the mud. I really do think that car is in better shape than it looks under all the gunk, but I also agree that the Olds is a better choice. It’s a real shame about the duct-taped seats, though; in good condition, those GM land-yacht interiors are just magnificent.
Now then, let’s take a look at a couple of sedans from the Ford Motor Company. Both of these cars are one-owner vehicles, and both have few miles and almost no clearcoat left. Here they are.
1994 Mercury Topaz – $1,995
Engine/transmission: 2.3 liter overhead-valve inline 4, three-speed automatic, FWD
Location: Arlington, TX
Odometer reading: 34,000 miles
Runs/drives? Yep, just fine
It will come as a surprise to no one when I say that this car came from the estate sale of an older woman. Some cars are just made for the bridge-club-and-beauty-parlor set, and the Mercury Topaz might just very well be their poster child. This badge-engineered twin of Ford’s Tempo features a tepid four-cylinder (which by the way is not the celebrated 2.3 liter Lima four from the Ranger, but rather the old Falcon-style six with two cylinders chopped off) and a particularly slushy three-speed slushbox which, while smooth, is about as pulse-raising as an episode of The Golden Girls.
Exciting it is not, but the Topaz is a fairly comfortable car for its size, easy to drive, and has simple, logical controls and good strong HVAC. Unfortunately, Ford never saw fit to equip the Tempo/Topaz with airbags after the passive-restraint requirement kicked in, so it also has those hateful motorized shoulder belts, along with a lap belt you have to fasten manually anyway.
This Topaz has covered a scant 34,000 miles in the Dallas/Fort Worth suburbs, and I’m willing to bet rarely saw speeds above 40 miles an hour in that time. It’s barely broken in, and as long as the original owner kept up on the maintenance (“once a year, whether it needs it or not”), it’s probably a good reliable little car. The paint is dull, and there’s something wonky going on with the rear window seal that’s probably sun-related, but that’s fixable.
Inside, it’s practially a time capsule, except for some dirty carpet. I owned a Ford Tempo for a while, and I can tell you that those soft gray mouse-fur bucket seats provide almost no lateral support, but are really quite comfy on long drives.
1993 Ford Taurus – $2,000
Engine/drivetrain: 3.0 liter overhead valve V6, four-speed automatic, FWD
Location: Prineville, OR
Odometer reading: 104,800 miles
Runs/drives? Great, the ad says
Step up one size from the Tempo/Topaz and you find yourself in the ubiquitous Ford Taurus, here in what was once quite a lovely shade of green. The high-desert sun has cooked all the clearcoat off it, leaving it as dull as a kid’s toy plastic sword. This car was owned by the City of Prineville, Oregon, and apparently was used by city officials in and around the Prineville airport.
Tauruses of this era sold like hotcakes, and it’s not hard to see why. Again, it’s not an exciting car, but it is comfortable, smooth, reasonably reliable, and was a good value back then. For only two grand, and with only 104,000 miles on the odometer, this one feels like a good value still.
Like the vast majority of Tauruses, this one is powered by a three-liter “Vulcan” V6, a simple sixty-degree cast-iron pushrod affair of no particular distinction, but it works. It sends power to the front wheels through an overdrive automatic which is not known as a paragon of durability, but as long as it has been maintained it’s probably okay. This Taurus has a new battery and is said to run and drive just fine.
Obviously, neither of these cars are the stuff gearhead dreams are made of. But they’re both good honest transportation, the sort of car that’s getting hard to find these days. And from the looks of it, if you don’t mind some scorched paint, they both have some life left in them. So what’ll it be – Granny’s Topaz, or the city fleet special Taurus?
(Hat-tip to the Underappreciated Survivors Facebook group for alerting me to the existence of these two.)
(Image credits: Craigslist sellers)
I spent far too much time in my mom’s ’87 Tempo to ever consider a Tempo/Topaz over walking.
Taurus for Us!
Also about those mouse belts – I had a Thunderbird with them and they drove me nuts. I simply unplugged the motor when it was all the way back on the pillar and manually put the belt on and took it off every time I got in/out of the car just like the lap belt. Problem solved.
Damn…that’s a tough call. I guess I’ll go Tracer because I missed out buying one that I drove by during the pandemic. By the time I had turned around to check it out, it had already been sold. Literally missed it by 7 minutes.
But the Taurus looks sharp too.
The Tempo/Topaz were such a sad, droopy, neglected looking car. It’s like the designer died on day one, and nobody noticed and just went forward with the most flaccid car in the history of the automobile. Some cars are ugly as a result of styling (like the Juke) but this things are ugly by neglect. Everything sucked about these depressing heaps.
So yes, I’ll take the Taurus. I’d take a broken golf cart over the Topaz.
The Topaz has TOO FEW miles for it’s age. As soon as you start driving it like a real car, things will break. And when you go to fix those things, other things will break.
The Taurus’ municipal ownership is a good thing. Most muni vehicles get serviced frequently regardless of usage. Plus, it’s just a better car to begin with.
muni vehicles also get run pretty raggedly by the people assigned to them. more so the older they get.
During my tenure at Pep Boys, I worked on SO many of both of those cars that I will hate them forever. Hell for me would be an infinitely long shop, every bay containing a Taurus that needs a heater core and wheel bearings, each one smelling like cigarettes and puke.
Thou shalt not besmirch the Golden Girls.
I have spoken.
Taurus.
Blanche certainly got my boyhood heart rate up once or twice.
A strange game. The only winning move is not to play.
How about a nice game of chess?
I voted for the Topaz only because it’s a very rare version of a not that good 90’s car. I grew up in a household with 2(!) Ford Tempos, one year apart, and I learned to drive on those suckers (mind you, this is when the cars were about 20 years old, and my dad’s Tempo was salvage titled when he bought it). If I needed a car right now, I wouldn’t mind dropping $2000 on a low mileage Topaz.
The Taurus is just a better vaule overall.
this is the last of them, in very low mileage, but I agree somewhat of a unicorn at this point. These cars came with AWD a few years prior and the same 3.0 V6 as the Taurus in higher end trim. but I Kind of wish this one was a 5 speed manual. then it would be very rare and nobody would want it, so it would be a bit cheaper.
I voted on the Topaz solely because of the location. The miles is a bonus though
Topaz. That 2.3 is kissing cousin to the Lima and that’s promise enough that it’ll stick around long enough to watch the cockroaches inherit the earth. Couple that with the fact that the AXOD was riddled with issues and generally not that great (there are outliers, though). I’ll take the ATX transmission all day every day. Sure, Ford couldn’t be bothered to even come up with an interesting name for it, and gave it pretty much the least creative one possible, with the 2.3 it doesn’t even have a torque converter. Sure, that sucks for fuel economy but it’s one less part to go wrong and one less solenoid to fail too.
I have an irresistible urge to go to the nice Denny’s, complain about music these days, and vote straight ticket Republican. Topaz.
Actually, the 2.3 doesn’t really bear that much similarity to the Lima, which I agree is a terrific engine. The 2.3 HSC (high swirl combustion? I think that’s the term) is a direct descendent of the Ford 200 Thriftpower six from the 60s. And by direct descendent, I mean they hacked off 2 cylinders and called it a day. Gotta love Ford’s half-assery when it came to engine development in the 80s. Still an incredibly durable engine, though.
You’re not wrong. TBH, I had some difficulty in confirming or denying true lineage of this particular 2.3. I presumed that some architecture was likely shared or in common with the Lima, but yes they’re not really the same. That said, the Thriftpower was a pretty solid unit in its own right and you could do a lot worse than that as your forebear. Seconded on Ford’s half-assery in the 80s. It seemed like most of their powertrains in that era came from warmed over stuff from the previous decade(s).
I think you missed the Lockup portion of this statement, but I got the gist since you mentioned the solenoid. Lockup Torque converters help a little, but not that much.
Yep, whoops. This post was pre-coffee!
Topaz, all the way, because the Taurus transmission will blow lunch two months after you buy it. Plus, the Topaz is a babe magnet. Women will flock to meet a man so secure in his masculinity that he’s willing to drive the most boring vehicle in the tri-state area.
I simply THOUGHT about buying this Topaz and my wife already spoke to me this morning. Coincidence? I think not. Babe magnet status confirmed.
This was a surprisingly tough choice for me. I’ll go with the Topaz because it looks like it has lived a ridiculously easy life. It helps that my first car was also a 1994 Mercury (Vilager), so that wrap around light bar at the front is super familiar to me. I can practically feel that mouse fur upholstery cradling me while I wait for the motorized seat belt to run across my throat.
I grew up in blue Taurus wagons, so the Taurus sedan here is my choice. But, really, who goes for a Topaz over a Taurus?
Taurus easy.
Speaking of the passive restraints – the Tempo/Topaz did actually offer an optional airbag early on, and were among the earlier automakers to offer one – starting with fleet buyers in 1985. Despite that, they also added the motorized belts a year or two later, which was still before the 1990 deadline – so it seems they weren’t committed to making it a standard feature by then, or adding a passenger airbag at some point. If they had they could have beaten or at least matched Chrysler in the segment as they made an airbag standard in most passenger cars for ’90, but don’t think they cared when the Taurus (which did get the driver airbag standard in ’90) was such a hit.
Damn. Last year, I threw out a good starter for a Tempo/Topaz. Guess, I’ll go for the Taurus.
Au contraire, Mr. Tucker, you could buy a Tempo/Topaz with an airbag. It required a very specific set of options, and I think the take rate was very low, but you could do it!
Yup we had one, bought from Safeco, where it was used by an adjuster.
Not sure if this applies to the “fancy” topaz, but the tempo was a single stage paint, no clear coat. I wouldn’t be surprised if that’s the same here. My grandma had an old coupe, she literally went into the dealer back in 94 and asked what the cheapest car they had was. Drove out with a red (later turned pink, see the single stage paint for that) coupe with a manual, didn’t even have AC. I learned to drive stick on that car. Still went with the Taurus here though, just because of the 3 speed in the topaz. No one wants to cruise down the highway with those 4 cylinders screaming at 4500 rpm begging for you to slow down. Plus, too low of miles tends to put me off, too many gaskets are probably dried out and that engine probably at least seeps oil from everywhere imaginable.
My second car was a 90 Taurus. Nigh indestructible.
Was on a date heading to dinner and movie with girlfriend. Guy running from the cops tapped the passenger rear corner of the Taurus and we rammed the divider concrete head on. Repaired.
Fell asleep on a highway trip. Woke up to Armco tearing up the drivers side of the car. MAACO. Body and paint.
Was designated driver for a bunch of drunkards on a very wet road. Hydroplaned and hit the curb trashing passenger front suspension and wheel. Friends dads shop did work at cost.
Finally a drunk driver (at 530 on a Friday!) rear ended me going 40 while I was stopped at a light. She had just gotten off probation for prior dui. That killed it dead.
Tauri will always have a place in my heart.
Taurus by default. I had a Topaz once, actually in 1994 (although it was an ’84 model) and have no desire to relive the experience. It went from good used car to dangerous oil-burning wreck with remarkable speed, and did nothing else with any speed at all.
The Taurus. My family had both growing up (technically, a Tempo and a Taurus) and the Tempo was an uncomfortable slug of a car. The Taurus was definitely more pleasant to drive and spent far less time at the mechanic.
I think I’ll hold out for a SHO
Take that Taurus to Earl Scheib (are they still around?) or MAACO and get a cheap spray of paint and you’ll be sitting pretty. Except for the headliner, the interior looks as good as the Mercury, but with 100% fewer mouse belts.
Follow-up: Earl Scheib IS still in business! Ah, the childhood memories. Bask in the harsh tones of his tobacco-ravaged vocal cords as he promises to “paint any car for 99.95”: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Auvf7DDw5z0
The answer is MAACO. See my other comment t.
Those motorized mouse belts were the stupidest solution to “passive” restraint. Might be kitschy the first one or two times you get in, but after that, you will curse the dipshit who thought they were a good idea. It’s not even a safety improvement without buckling the lap belt, thereby eliminating any passive advantages.
I’ll take the two extra cylinders and one extra gear of the ubiquitous Taurus. At least there are salvage yards with a few billion parts for keeping it on the road for cheap.
Neither of these spark too much joy but I have to go for the Taurus out of nostalgia. My grandmother had this exact model in this exact trim and it made for a very comfortable ride.
The overall malaisity of the Topaz is hard to resist, but not against a face-lifted Taurus. The bull takes the win.