TRYING TO TOP THE TAURUS

Auto industry insiders were unimpressed and merciless. They dubbed it a “jelly bean,” a “flying spud” and a “gel tab,” among other unflattering appellations. The object of their scorn was the newly introduced 1986 Ford Taurus and its softly rounded contours, which defied the sharp-edged, boxy look long favored by the industry.

But the critics were wrong. Welcoming the new look, buyers flocked to the showrooms, and sales of the Taurus soared–just in time to rescue Ford from the worst financial crisis in the company’s history. A decade later, some 3.3 million Tauruses–as well as a million look-alike, upscale Sables produced by the company’s Lincoln-Mercury division–are on the road. And the largely unchanged Taurus has been the best-selling car in the country for three years running. Together, Taurus and Sable account for one-third of Ford’s U.S. auto production and also exceed U.S. sales of all European brands combined, as well as outselling all U.S. Nissan models.

Who would want to tamper with that kind of success? Ford, for one. Explains Ross Roberts, general manager of the Ford division that produces the Taurus: “Taurus was the innovative leader 10 years ago, but the current owners were saying , ‘I’m already on my second or third car, and I’m tired of it,’ and the nonowners were saying they weren’t going to come over until we showed them something totally new.”

That is what Ford set out to do, in one of the biggest, costliest and most risk-filled gambles in company history. On Sept. 27, Ford will launch a Taurus completely redesigned and restyled at a cost of $2.8 billion, almost a bargain compared with Ford’s $5 billion investment in its compact-size “world car,” including the U.S. versions Contour and Mystique, introduced this year.

Says Roberts: “The Ford Motor Co. is betting its reputation. If it’s wrong, it’s going to hurt us, but I think it’s the right gamble to take.”

A daunting goal was to change the look of the Taurus without changing its identity. Designer Doug Gaffka and his team, inspired by the familiar Taurus oval grille, took an elliptical route. Viewed from the side, the new Taurus has an elongated oval shape, as do its headlights, rear window, door handles, control panel, airbag pad and more. It has no chrome trim, no visible seams, a curving, dropped rear deck and a steep, sloping windshield. “We kept trying to make it sleek, sleek and sleeker,” says Gaffka. “We wanted to suck the body molding right down over the mechanics as if it were carved out of a single piece of metal.”

Those mechanics were the concern of Ford engineers who as early as 1991 began planning the design for the new Taurus by tearing down and analyzing some 14 competitive models in a windowless basement room at the Ford Design Center in Dearborn, Michigan. Their brutally frank internal review found numerous faults with the Taurus and many superior features in the competition. “We needed major improvements in squeak and rattle performance and engine noises that came with wide-open acceleration,” recalls George Bell, the chief engineer. “There was a tendency of the car to loosen up, and we clearly needed to improve points in steering and handling confidence.”

But what disturbed the engineers most were reports from the field, where Taurus owners who were surveyed complained more about wind noise than any other factor. Aware that the 1992 Toyota Camry boasted a quiet ride, along with other enviable features, the team took as its motto “Beat Camry.”

To match the Camry’s interior quiet, for example, Ford designers abandoned the traditional “limousine” door that edges over the roofline–and fashioned a door set into the roof itself and insulated with three layers of weather stripping. This revision not only reduced wind noise but also enabled designers to change the location of water runoffs on the roof, further cutting noise on rainy days. But like every innovation that required radical retooling, this change was the subject of heated debates between the manufacturing and design camps–between those who said, “It can’t be done, it has never been done,” and others who asked, “Why not? Why haven’t you tried it, and how do you know?”

The sloping aluminum deck of the Taurus, for example, was a first at Ford. While the lightweight, easily worked metal provided styling and economic advantages, plant manufacturing experts such as Dave Gorman were concerned about its susceptibility to damage during shipping, assembly and fitting. “The deck lid is still a worry,” Gorman admits. “There are still days when I feel I’m two steps ahead of the sheriff.”

Many of the confrontations between the design and manufacturing groups occurred during 15-minute “mixers” that were instituted by Bell to deal with technical problems. During each of these mini meetings, participants would exchange their views on a single problem. Constrained by the time limit, the participants would stay focused on the topic and become rather tense. “It was more excitement than I could stand,” says Bell wryly. Bell’s mixers were followed nearly every night by three- or four-hour sessions presided over by Dave Landgraff, the project’s leader. “We had everybody concerned with a particular aspect of the car in a room together,” says Landgraff, who insisted on innovation and allowed no chairs during the sessions to keep everyone standing and attentive. In terms of philosophy, the operative word was “stretch.” When the engineers despaired of focusing the headlights, which designers had recessed deep into the metal frame of the car, Landgraff exhorted them to keep trying. “I thought we were never going to make this thing work,” he says. In the end, barely visible grooves inside the casing kept the beam under control.

The pressure took its toll. “I’ve been in meetings where guys were throwing stuff at each other,” says Landgraff, who acknowledges a high rate of burnout and defections from the Taurus team over the 38-month life of the project. “There was an unusual amount of stress and stretching. But if you can make that happen, you can break down all kinds of barriers.”

That the barriers were coming down at Ford was evident to designer Gaffka early in the redesign project, when Ford chairman Alex Trotman would drop by to view the latest clay model. “That’s not far enough,” he declared on one visit. “You’re not scaring me yet.” After that, says Gaffka, “I never thought I was going to get my hand slapped for pushing too far.” Still, some of the early styling proposals, shown in model form to clinics of potential buyers, were judged too strange and futuristic.

When the final model was rolled into place in the spring of 1992, the bustling design studio suddenly fell silent. “We knew we had it,” says George Bell. “We had a winner on our hands.” From their early reactions to the Taurus, car buffs seem to agree. “It moves a couple of giant steps forward toward Accord and Camry,” says Ken Zino, Detroit editor for Road and Track. “Ford spent a lot of money on the car, and it shows.”

In addition to the standard sedan, the new Taurus line will offer a high-performance version with a V-8 engine, scheduled for next spring, a station wagon even more dramatically styled than the sedans and a distinctly different Mercury Sable version. And for the first time in one of its high-volume cars, Ford is building right-hand-drive Tauruses for export, which Ford marketers are estimating could amount to as much as 10% of worldwide Taurus sales.

Indeed, the Taurus is key to Trotman’s plans to displace General Motors as the No. 1 auto manufacturer in the world, and, early in the next century, to wrest the world-quality title away from Toyota. To accomplish those goals, Trotman has already made good on a promise that he gave to the Ford board of directors soon after he assumed the chairmanship in late 1993. His opening presentation to the board, a reorganization plan called Ford 2000, was analytical and orderly. “But, basically, what we were hearing,” says a senior director, “was ‘I’m Alex Trotman, and I’m going to blow up the company.'”

And he has. By dismantling and merging various groups and divisions, and integrating Ford’s worldwide operations into five international “vehicle centers,” Trotman has effected a sea change in the company’s culture. As a result, seven of 12 organizational layers have already been cut out of the company.

While the Ford 2000 program will boost efficiency, the company’s fate will rest heavily on the sales performance of the new Taurus. To promote those sales, Ford heeded the protests of its dealers and scaled back a proposed 7% price increase for the new model, which had been intended to cover the high cost of bringing the car to market. That would have pushed the basic model above the $20,000 mark, which analysts believe is the cutoff level for many middle-income buyers. Instead, the company opted for a 5.6% rise and priced the basic Taurus at $19,390.

Even the smaller increase has some experts worried. “They’re abandoning a lot of their former customers,” says Susan Jacobs, a New Jersey marketing analyst. “I don’t think this market can absorb price increases at all. So I think it’ll be a challenge.” Joseph Phillippi, an analyst with Lehman Brothers, calls the Taurus “a wonderful automobile,” but asks, “Is the market going to pay them for the amount of content they’ve engineered into the car? A lot of cost has crept in. It’s a real issue.”

Adding to that cost, Ford will launch a $150 million advertising campaign called “The Big Bang” with TV spots on every prime-time show and football game during the first week of October. The commercials will proclaim, “Taurus stole your heart once, it’ll do it again…making the dream come true.”

The tension in Dearborn is palpable. Says David Scott, Ford’s chief spokesman: “Some time next month, people will actually plunk down hard-earned money for this creation.” And that, he says, is the “ultimate test.” To pass that test, Ford would do well to set yet another goal: “Beat (the old) Taurus.”

–Reported by William McWhirter and Joseph Szczesny/Detroit