What'd you do this weekend? I spent Saturday and Sunday agonizing over an eBay Motors auction for this 1991 Ford Taurus SHO. You probably think I'm crazy, but the SHO remains one of my all time favorite cars, primarily because of its motor, a Yamaha 220-hp 3.0L V6 designed and built for Ford. Of all the SHOs built between 1989 and 1999, the '91 model is king. It was the last of the first generation, and therefore the lightest and fastest thanks to its lack of pesky safety features that added weight to later models. I'm about ready to replace my infamous '99 Alero, and wasn't even thinking SHO until I found this auction on eBay Motors for a Burgundy '91 model – one owner with just 53,000 miles. Anyone who regularly monitors this country's stock of SHOs for sale knows that finding one with less than 100k miles is rare enough, let alone one with just 53k.
We heard yesterday from a group of Ford Taurus SHO fans who were questioned in a focus group by Ford employees working on the next Taurus program, so we know that the Blue Oval is at least considering a high performance version of the next Taurus. Combine that with a grainy cell phone pic we posted of what could be a design study for the next Taurus and you've got fertile elements for our friends over at BringBacktheSHO.com who specialize in letting their imaginations run wild. Ryan Pasch who runs the website actually attended the focus group in question earlier this week, so these renderings based off of that grainy camera phone pic may be more accurate than we realize. Pasch calls the car in his renders the BringBacktheSHO Concept V2, and judging from the pics in our gallery below, we're as ready for the SHO's triumphant return as he his.
Being an avid Super High Output fan, any news of a Taurus SHO return gets my imagination going. Should it be FWD, AWD, or RWD? V8-powered or have a twin-turbo V6 underhood? Should it be light and handle well or compensate for its mass with awesome amounts of power? I ask these questions to myself, but last Monday a group of 11 Chicago area SHO fanatics were asked those same questions by members of the Taurus program from Ford.
As told by Don Mallinson on V8Sho.com, the story goes that this band of brothers participated in a focus group and had their brains picked for an evening about what makes a SHO a SHO, and if the much missed name were to be resurrected, what should the car be like today? Mallinson is clear that he and the focus group participants did not see a prototype, sketches of a prototype, or anything else that would confirm development is well on its way. The experience was pretty much a one-way street of questions, but these 11 people may have influenced Ford's decision to bring back the SHO and, if so, in what way. Such an awesome responsibility, I probably couldn't handle it.
