Nineties Concept Cars Part 2—Lost in Translation: 1991 Ford Contour to 3rd Generation Taurus

By the dawn of the 1990s, the transversely-mounted engine driving the front wheels had become a standard format for mainstream passenger cars.  Pioneered by British Motor Company on the groundbreaking Mini in 1959 and refined by Honda in the early 1970s on the Civic, it had spread to larger cars like the Honda Accord and Toyota Camry, finally showing up on the Ford Taurus in 1986.  This car probably saved Ford from bankruptcy, and quickly became the best-selling car in the US market, a distinction shared by the 2nd generation Taurus, which ran from 1991 through 1995 model years.  By the end of the 1980s, though, Ford's directors were looking for new design themes to carry the car into the 21st century.  They chose Taru Lahti to design a radical show car.

The Contour, which appeared in 1991, stunned auto show visitors and attracted a lot of interest from the Japanese firms, who understood it might represent future compention for their Accords and Camrys…after all, the Taurus had been the first American car to beat them in the marketplace. They were intrigued by the car's body structure, a composite with plastic external panels attached to a bonded aluminum frame. Three years before Chrysler would launch its "cab forward" cars, the Contour's design team saved space under the hood by forsaking the V6 Taurus engine for an inline, transversely mounted 8, actually two 4-cylinder blocks with a patented "T-drive" channeling power to the front wheels.

Like the Focus roadster that Lahti would dream up at Ghia, the Contour fed its head and tail lights from a single internal light source through fiber optics.  And like that car, it featured bodywork with no straight lines or flat planes. Other innovations included a cooling system fed by air drawn from the front wheel wells to reduce turbulence.  In the view above, the ovoid plan and curved window shapes and sections reflect the oval theme selected by Ford's design staff for their next product lines.  The split rear spoiler is also visible above.

The large-diameter wheels and low profile tires are a dominant feature, emphasized by the short overhangs front and rear.  If Lahti had taken a page out of Giugiaro's book and painted this prototype silver, the subtle concave indents running along the car's flanks between the wheels woud be more visible; they can be seen in the top two photos.

The interior featured adjustable pedals, steering wheel and instruments.  The shift lever intruding into the center of the contoured front bench seat is a puzzling detail.  Sadly, the Contour was confined to the show circuit, and unlike the later Focus Concept, was never given a functioning drivetrain, or even more than one opening door.  At the time it appeared, it seemed that a produciton car with this configuration would have hit the car design profession with an impact similar to what the Citroen DS 19 had in 1955.

What is less clear is whether such a car would have been embraced by Americans in the same way they'd adopted the original Taurus, or the way the French had clamored for the DS. For the 3rd generation Taurus which appeared for 1996, designer Doug Gaffka adapted the oval theme to body sections, window shapes and air intakes, and incorporated the subtly defined, shadowed concavity in the flanks which emphasizes length in the photo below. In order to line up the doors and fenders along this concavity, new sheet metal stamping techniques were developed. The new car received good road test reports, but never duplicated the sales success of the 1st and 2nd generation Taurus...

The divergence from the Contour show car may be traced to the proportions of the production car. Without the big wheels and short overhangs, the design loses its aggressive impact. The overall effect was user-friendly, but with more of the flavor of an agreeable bathtub toy than a roadgoing Lear Jet.  It's a reminder of what can get lost in translating a prototype full of fresh ideas into a product adapted to available techniques and components. 

Photo Credits:

All photos:  Ford Motor Company