Do you know the provenance of yours? Is it one of those, or was it one modified after market?

You are correct, Ford built two of them, back in, what was it, 1991? They did a red one as a show car that was tested by Car & Driver magazine, and a white one that was a test mule and only driven around the Detroit area.

By my estimation, there are probably about a dozen ShoWagons in existance. Mine was built by a mechanic who worked at a Ford dealership in New Hampshire; he built it for his wife. I was told that he started with a brand new wagon, and transferred components from a wrecked SHO sedan into it. This is not a trivial undertaking, BTW... just a about everything is different between the SHO sedan and the standard Taurus sedan, and there are further differences between the sedan and the wagon. Engine, transmission, motor mounts, transmission mounts, suspension, axles, brakes, wheels, tires, electrical system, wiring harness, engine management computer, lights, accessories, dash, carpeting, seats, instrumentation, shift console, sound system... just about *everything* is different.

The guy I bought it from was not the original owner/builder, and I don't know exactly how he acquired the car. He had driven it for about five years and discovered that SHOs are real expensive to maintain (parts are two to five times as expensive as the equivalent part on a standard Taurus) so he stopped maintaining it. When I got the car, it was running on five cylinders, brakes were metal on metal, power steering pump was making alarming noises, the carpeting was pretty well destroyed (grocery-getter/kid-hauler duty) and there was not a body panel anywhere on the car that didn't have paint scrapes and door dings. He tried to trade it in on a new mini-van, but the dealer wouldn't take the car even for free. Couldn't really -- how could an established dealer sell, guarantee, and assume liability for a car with the wrong engine, wrong brakes, wrong wiring, and God-only-knows what other bastardizations had been done to it. So he (the owner) figured the car wasn't worth anything and put it up on a swap and sell program on a local radio station for $1495 or best offer. I heard about it (interesting story in itself) and the rest is history. $1495 is pretty cheap -- but still probably about twice what it was really worth.

The ShoWagon owner who contacted me one-upped me, though: his is a Generation III wagon with the V-8 engine. Maybe the only one in existance. But, to alleviate the shame a bit, I can tell you that the people who are knowledgeable about SHOs are not enthused about the Gen. III cars. Build quality is down, and the V-8 SHO motor has some well documented problems -- notably failure of the camshaft drive sprockets and the rocker arm assemblies. Some people have been quoted repair costs approaching $10,000. I have heard (but have no data to back this up) that performance wise the V-6 Gen. II vs the V-8 Gen III is a wash.

I do get quite a kick out of my ShoWagon -- the ultimate sleeper!



tanstaafl.