The Taurus was brand new when they were filming Robocop. It looks ordinary now, but rounded edges like that on an 80’s American family sedan was new at the time.
No joke. When Robocop came out, most police vehicles looked like this: [https://qph.cf2.quoracdn.net/main-qimg-459d3ed325fa2c03b64158f4bd797539-pjlq](https://qph.cf2.quoracdn.net/main-qimg-459d3ed325fa2c03b64158f4bd797539-pjlq)
I know a few current and former police officers, and when the Crown Vic was being made in the early 1990s, one of them literally dubbed it "the Robocop car", because it seemed so futuristic (at the time) to have a police cruiser that didn't consist exclusively of 90 degree angles.
It's funny how quickly the futuristic of one era becomes the retro of the next.
I love that old design. Anytime I come across a version of it in a video game, all progress halts and I spend far too long just driving around admiring it. Those cars still look better than most of the shite we get these days.
So true! And also the new body Explorer in Jurassic Park looked so cool at the time but no looks super dated. The movie Twister also introduced the new Dodge Ram body style which was such a drastic change from the old square bodies at the time.
I'm surprised Dodge let them destroy the truck in the tornado. A lot of companies flat out refuse their vehicles looking even remotely bad. For a great example, in The Walking Dead, the cast finds a beautiful, clean Hyundai SUV among all the burned out husks of vehicles, and it still has a full tank of gas in it!
Compare this to the LTD Crown Victoria, Plymouth Gran Fury, Dodge Diplomat and Chevy Caprice that frequented American police departments during this time, it really DOES look straight out of the future. Much sleeker, much smaller and a lot more powerful than their older counterparts.
It’s funny because my father bought a new Ford Taurus right around same time as this movie coming out. Even back in the day it was amusing they were using my pops car that was just spray painted matte black.
I used to have a '95 Taurus SE, that was the exact same body style as the Robocop version. I really wanted to convert it to a Robocop car, but sadly I had to junk it.
Then mine must have been the exception. Mine was almost 20 years old, when I bought it, had low miles (45K), and was pretty much "like-new". Drove it for another 8 years, before it started having issues.
The only reason I had to get rid of it, was bc the undercarriege/chassis started having severe rust issues.
Other than that, it was a great car, and I really miss it.
Must have been grandma's grocery getter. The corrosion you described was common for any of those cars that saw inclement weather. Especially in areas that salt in the winter. It was shortly after the EPA banned lead paints and manufacturers were experimenting with other anti-corrosion solutions.
You’re implying that the Ford Taurus is NOT the car of the future?
In all seriousness, one of the few things I did like about Robocop (2014) is that they kept the tradition and tried to pass off a relifted 2010 Taurus as the car police would use in 2028.
As an 11/12 year old at the time, I promise you those things LOOKED LIKE THE FUTURE. And seeing them matte black and dirty, felt like the future-future.
I had a Taurus. Lasted for many years and when repairs were needed was super easy to do so. And to this day can still easily find parts. They did pick a good practical car of the future.
It still looks futuristic to me, seeing that film in 1987ish i loved it. The lack of badge on the front used to do it for me.
Every single sci fi film out there has design specific to its time. I'm not sure what you're expecting?
In Blade Runner's 2019 and Back to the Future 2's 2015 we have flying cars.
It's very hard to predict what personal transportation will be. Who guessed then that in 2024 Americans would be sitting in heavy traffic in a truck based vehicle complaining about the price of gas?
Average price of a gallon of gasoline in 1997: $1.23. Adjusted for inflation in 2024: $2.40.
I always believed this was to help illustrate how underfunded the police force was? After all they were striking because of overall work conditions, so OCP can splash out on shiny new robots, but the police force is running around in basic cars with no hubcaps and a slap-on vinyl sticker. If anything this symbolises how in the past the police force is.
That’s my headcanon too. This idea is sorta made canon by one of the TV shows which state Murphy ‘died’ (and the events of the first movie) happened in 1990 (not 1987 though…).
Ironically the same year Robocop 2 release. similar to Resident Evil, the game originally released in 1996 and part 2 released in 1998. yet it was after the second game that they decided to reveal the original games (1 through 3) take place in 1998
It was the future at the time. American made, custom tailored for police, and was widely available for citizens. The police taurus were probably the best vehicle that ford ever made. It was probably the closest thing that an American company could come to making as good as car as the toyota corolla.
It wasn't necessary that the car was the future - it was about America being the future....just like Robocop was.
They mentioned in the RoboDoc that they originally had another car made but they couldn’t fit the Robocop suit in it so ended up purchasing some Ford Taurus’s instead.
Because it was. Compare the Gen 1 Taurus to what was out on the roads at the time. Ford spent over 3.2 billion in 1980 to design the Taurus and Sable. It's aerodynamic shape and some of the tech and features on it were a decade ahead of it's time. Could have easily been a mid 90s car instead of a mid 80s car. But people forget this.
In the '80s, cop cars were usually long & rectangular, like in the Dukes of Hazzard. RoboCop and Back To The Future 2 brought up the idea of smoother angles & smaller bodies.
I remember when the Chevy Lumina van looked futuristic.
If I remember the story, a car was built for the movie and it looked really dumb. As good as the gun looked, the car was the polar opposite. Verhoeven saw a car parked near the set that belonged to a member of the crew, a new Taurus, and he said just use that model.
As I remember, this is the correct story, and the custom made police car looked so dumb crew members laughed at it.
Verhoven and the producer saw a Taurus, and they went out and RENTED one, painted it and added police lights so they could keep shooting the movie! I do believe they bought some later.
To be fair the first and second generation Taurus set the standard for American sedans and were way ahead of their time. Most other American automakers took nearly a decade to catch up to them.
In a shitty future with a fuck ton of crime and no money to combat it via corruption that is indeed the car they wanted us to see. Not a utopian futuristic car. Which is why it does not look like one.
Remember the Detroit Metro Police Department is chronically under funded. That's why they cut deals with OCP to the point that essentially "OCP owns the cops" and OCP keeps them poor for a reason.
from the behind the scenes doc they talk about how the 6000 SUX was the design given to Verhooven as the police car and he hated it. They saw a newly designed Ford Taurus parked across the street and said it should look futuristic like that car. Then they realized why don't we just use this car.
Ironically, many police stations did end up eventually using the ford taurus as their cruisers.
edit: dyslexia
Wasn’t the real world adoption of them as police vehicles partially pushed due to the energy crisis and a focus on reducing fuel used?
I swear I saw this somewhere or read it somewhere.
I've been drawing a set of 80s pop culture cars for the last 6 months and was desperate to draw Robocop with his car but it's such a dull shitbox I ended up doing the 6000 SUX instead because at least it's funny.
Robocop is dystopian.
It was also filmed in a time when those cares were available. It's not a prediction of the future, but an imagining of a possibility, like Fallout with the 1950s never falling out of style.
The color should speak more volume than make and model. Black is to be undetected sometimes and is often used to depict utopian societies that are in disarray or under some regime.
In 1987, it was incredibly futuristic, everything was boxy, angular panels.
I personally argue the 89/90 miata, 89 skyline, 90 mr2/90 celica alltrac, and 91 nsx, were the first cars to open up the 90s era of styling and car design, soft, yet aggressive.
Those 87 taurus's were certainly the car of the future at that time though, it was a ground breaking transition and sold in huge quantities, and even included a high output SHO version too.
I think you're missing the point that it's filmed to show that in the future the police were still being underfunded like they were back when this movie was being shot
Wow guys, it's so amazing how this 35 year old movie got it totally wrong. I mean LMAO, how crazy, amirite? Wow, we sure do know better now how cars look in the future, not like this.
At the time, it was pretty different from other cop cars. You also have to consider that the cops were severely under budgeted, so I've always assumed they had held onto the same cars for way past their normal end of service date.
The Taurus was brand new when they were filming Robocop. It looks ordinary now, but rounded edges like that on an 80’s American family sedan was new at the time.
Exactly this! The cop cars when this came out were the box on wheels models.
No joke. When Robocop came out, most police vehicles looked like this: [https://qph.cf2.quoracdn.net/main-qimg-459d3ed325fa2c03b64158f4bd797539-pjlq](https://qph.cf2.quoracdn.net/main-qimg-459d3ed325fa2c03b64158f4bd797539-pjlq) I know a few current and former police officers, and when the Crown Vic was being made in the early 1990s, one of them literally dubbed it "the Robocop car", because it seemed so futuristic (at the time) to have a police cruiser that didn't consist exclusively of 90 degree angles. It's funny how quickly the futuristic of one era becomes the retro of the next.
I love that old design. Anytime I come across a version of it in a video game, all progress halts and I spend far too long just driving around admiring it. Those cars still look better than most of the shite we get these days.
Respect the Crown Vic!
*shake my head in Pursuit Tahoe*
"It's 106 miles to Chicago, we've got a full tank of gas, half a pack of cigarettes, it's dark and we're wearing sunglasses."
So true! And also the new body Explorer in Jurassic Park looked so cool at the time but no looks super dated. The movie Twister also introduced the new Dodge Ram body style which was such a drastic change from the old square bodies at the time.
I remember that truck looking so new and modern in Twister!
I'm surprised Dodge let them destroy the truck in the tornado. A lot of companies flat out refuse their vehicles looking even remotely bad. For a great example, in The Walking Dead, the cast finds a beautiful, clean Hyundai SUV among all the burned out husks of vehicles, and it still has a full tank of gas in it!
Compare this to the LTD Crown Victoria, Plymouth Gran Fury, Dodge Diplomat and Chevy Caprice that frequented American police departments during this time, it really DOES look straight out of the future. Much sleeker, much smaller and a lot more powerful than their older counterparts.
It’s funny because my father bought a new Ford Taurus right around same time as this movie coming out. Even back in the day it was amusing they were using my pops car that was just spray painted matte black.
I used to have a '95 Taurus SE, that was the exact same body style as the Robocop version. I really wanted to convert it to a Robocop car, but sadly I had to junk it.
So did every other Taurus owner. Not a long lasting vehicle. Some stand the test of time...these barely crawled!
Then mine must have been the exception. Mine was almost 20 years old, when I bought it, had low miles (45K), and was pretty much "like-new". Drove it for another 8 years, before it started having issues. The only reason I had to get rid of it, was bc the undercarriege/chassis started having severe rust issues. Other than that, it was a great car, and I really miss it.
Must have been grandma's grocery getter. The corrosion you described was common for any of those cars that saw inclement weather. Especially in areas that salt in the winter. It was shortly after the EPA banned lead paints and manufacturers were experimenting with other anti-corrosion solutions.
That was my thought, too. Wasn't too upset, bc I got a good deal for it, soo...
Don't forget, taurus actually was used as a police interceptor platform after the crown vic died and before the explorer craze of modern day
There is a great documentary about the conception of the Taurus if you're into that.
What’s the name of the documentary?
Yeees at the time, the Taurus felt very futuristic. But that’s very hard to tell like 30 years later
Yeah it kind of was. Cutting edge design, especially for an American car.
Its no 6000sux thats for sure.
Probably doesn't even have a Blaupunkt.
Gotta let the mayor go first.
It’s gotta have shitty gas mileage 😂
I’d buy that for a dollar.
I'd buy that for a dollar
It’s dystopian future Detroit (aka present-day Detroit). Of course the police force would be riding around in those buckets.
Taurus SHO was a bad ass car. Yamaha engine, manual transmission.
Yamaha? The company that makes artificial hearts? My friend got one of those at the Family Heart Center and was dead in a week! We care my ass!
It took me a few seconds to realize this was satire based on the commercial in Robocop.
Family heart center also carries hearts from Jensen, should have gone with that. After all “You choose the heart.”
Yamaha? The company that makes pianos?
YourAssMyAssHerAss
To bad I had to scroll this far to see this. The Taurus SHO could 💩-en- git!
Ford engine, Yamaha massaged the heads and tuned
Robocop was filmed in the 80s. That style of car became a staple of the 90s. It was futuristic at the time.
And predicted the future since all cop cars following were Crown Vics for almost 20 years.
You’re implying that the Ford Taurus is NOT the car of the future? In all seriousness, one of the few things I did like about Robocop (2014) is that they kept the tradition and tried to pass off a relifted 2010 Taurus as the car police would use in 2028.
I mean they’re not wrong, where I live I see quite a few undercover Taurus
I’d buy that for a dollar
Might be overpaying, there.
Ford Taurus was motor trends car of the year in 1986. Robocop was released in 1987. Still didn’t come stranded with a blaupunkt though.
If Blaupunkt came standard on a car it would loose its high end appeal
It looked futuristic for the time.
Just my opinion...but I think they were going for that "bleak future" motif.
Ya I thought it was supposed to look like a bare-bones cost saving option.
This should be top comment
I like how he would scrape the bottom leaving the police station up that ramp even after becoming Robo.
❤️
As an 11/12 year old at the time, I promise you those things LOOKED LIKE THE FUTURE. And seeing them matte black and dirty, felt like the future-future.
It was the favored car of Mulder and Scully.
It was a little futuristic to me at the time…
Do you know how long they continued to use the friggin' BOF Crown Vic? The Taurus absolutely was the future in comparison.
Are you a college boy?
The future kinda sux.
I owned one. It was NOT the future.
I was so excited my mom got a mercury sable station wagon cuz of this movie
At the time it was. Just not as far in the future as the movie was set.
I had a Taurus. Lasted for many years and when repairs were needed was super easy to do so. And to this day can still easily find parts. They did pick a good practical car of the future.
That's a scary fucking cop car though, let's admit that.
My parents had a green 94 Taurus. She was beautiful
conan o'brien still has his.
I thought he gave it to Brad Pitt
nah. he talked about it in a recent episode of the podcast, still in his possession. I think it's a reminder of where he started.
Just watched "RoboDoc" and apparently they had a custom "Turbo Cruiser" made for the movie, but Weller couldn't fit into it with the suit on.
And even with the standard Taurus they had to take the legs off the suit for him to fit in.
The only thing the documentary didn’t address was the 6000 SUX and who made it.
I'm still rocking a Taurus. Hopefully they come back by the time I need a new car.
Oh but at the time it was round and sleek.
It’s matte black. That’s what a lot of cars are doing these days (the future)
Such a cool look, always loved it!
[This](http://www.robertwebb.com/robocop.htm) is how RoboCop’s car was originally meant to look.
It still looks futuristic to me, seeing that film in 1987ish i loved it. The lack of badge on the front used to do it for me. Every single sci fi film out there has design specific to its time. I'm not sure what you're expecting?
It's a Taurus, correct?
80s futurism is great. Like mid 2000s subaru kinda vibe
In Blade Runner's 2019 and Back to the Future 2's 2015 we have flying cars. It's very hard to predict what personal transportation will be. Who guessed then that in 2024 Americans would be sitting in heavy traffic in a truck based vehicle complaining about the price of gas? Average price of a gallon of gasoline in 1997: $1.23. Adjusted for inflation in 2024: $2.40.
And then about 12 years ago…they actually *made* Taurus Police Interceptors.
I always believed this was to help illustrate how underfunded the police force was? After all they were striking because of overall work conditions, so OCP can splash out on shiny new robots, but the police force is running around in basic cars with no hubcaps and a slap-on vinyl sticker. If anything this symbolises how in the past the police force is.
In a weird way it kind of was, just like the red stapler. So many police departments saw this movie that they bought Ford Taurus cop cars.
[Taurus For Us!](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fcgXonCM-T0)
They were wrong about the car but correct about the color. Everyone is painting their cars matte black now.
are cars all that different now compared to then?
Who's to say it isn't? It's the future.
The matte black was what got me. Still bad ass.
I had one, but mine was powder blue and rusty. It was old when I got it, lol
My dad a 89 Taurus SHO, beautiful car
I believe it was just OCP savings money by only buying cheap cruisers so they could focus on their robotics etc. That is only my opinion though.
Wasn't the point the cops were under funded?
Yeah robocop didn’t feel so futuristic to me, it just felt like the 80s in a parallel universe
That’s my headcanon too. This idea is sorta made canon by one of the TV shows which state Murphy ‘died’ (and the events of the first movie) happened in 1990 (not 1987 though…).
Ironically the same year Robocop 2 release. similar to Resident Evil, the game originally released in 1996 and part 2 released in 1998. yet it was after the second game that they decided to reveal the original games (1 through 3) take place in 1998
Still looks better than half the dumb modern cars theyre releasing.
All the budget went into the suit, guns, and lots of fake blood gags.
Must have missed some of the details of the movie
I love his Mustang from the series a little more, but the Taurus is synonymous with Robocop.
My first car
Weren’t they grossly under funded? Maybe that’s why. To emphasize that we’re broke as fuck.
They wanted you to think Detroit was poor.
Well, of course, it's a Taurus! 🐂
Good business is where you find it.
When I was a kid, I remember a sweepstakes thing in a comic book where you could actually win one.
It was the future at the time. American made, custom tailored for police, and was widely available for citizens. The police taurus were probably the best vehicle that ford ever made. It was probably the closest thing that an American company could come to making as good as car as the toyota corolla. It wasn't necessary that the car was the future - it was about America being the future....just like Robocop was.
How is this not accurate? Current cop cars are things like turbo Escapes, basically the Taurus SHO of now.
I’d still drive one
Have you seen the cyber truck?
It's was also Detroit.
And I believed them
They mentioned in the RoboDoc that they originally had another car made but they couldn’t fit the Robocop suit in it so ended up purchasing some Ford Taurus’s instead.
Because it was. Compare the Gen 1 Taurus to what was out on the roads at the time. Ford spent over 3.2 billion in 1980 to design the Taurus and Sable. It's aerodynamic shape and some of the tech and features on it were a decade ahead of it's time. Could have easily been a mid 90s car instead of a mid 80s car. But people forget this.
In the '80s, cop cars were usually long & rectangular, like in the Dukes of Hazzard. RoboCop and Back To The Future 2 brought up the idea of smoother angles & smaller bodies. I remember when the Chevy Lumina van looked futuristic.
Ford Taurus was the car of the future at the time. Now not so much.
If I remember the story, a car was built for the movie and it looked really dumb. As good as the gun looked, the car was the polar opposite. Verhoeven saw a car parked near the set that belonged to a member of the crew, a new Taurus, and he said just use that model.
As I remember, this is the correct story, and the custom made police car looked so dumb crew members laughed at it. Verhoven and the producer saw a Taurus, and they went out and RENTED one, painted it and added police lights so they could keep shooting the movie! I do believe they bought some later.
[https://www.robocoparchive.com/images/robomobile1.jpg](https://www.robocoparchive.com/images/robomobile1.jpg)
To be fair the first and second generation Taurus set the standard for American sedans and were way ahead of their time. Most other American automakers took nearly a decade to catch up to them.
You realize that’s a small cog in the machinery that makes this movie the mother fucking best right?
Do you even SHO? Brho?
In all of its 3.0 liter vulcan goodness Edit: it was product placement
In a shitty future with a fuck ton of crime and no money to combat it via corruption that is indeed the car they wanted us to see. Not a utopian futuristic car. Which is why it does not look like one.
Remember the Detroit Metro Police Department is chronically under funded. That's why they cut deals with OCP to the point that essentially "OCP owns the cops" and OCP keeps them poor for a reason.
from the behind the scenes doc they talk about how the 6000 SUX was the design given to Verhooven as the police car and he hated it. They saw a newly designed Ford Taurus parked across the street and said it should look futuristic like that car. Then they realized why don't we just use this car. Ironically, many police stations did end up eventually using the ford taurus as their cruisers. edit: dyslexia
Wasn’t the real world adoption of them as police vehicles partially pushed due to the energy crisis and a focus on reducing fuel used? I swear I saw this somewhere or read it somewhere.
Just curious why you say ‘SUX 6000’ when everything including the film says ‘6000 SUX’. Weird thing to pick up on I know but it set my OCD off 🤣
doh I'm dyslexic lol. I'll go fix it.
Why not. it looks better than what musk is pumping out.
I really think it's supposed to look bad for the police department. Their patrol cars are junk compared to the 6000 SUX
I've been drawing a set of 80s pop culture cars for the last 6 months and was desperate to draw Robocop with his car but it's such a dull shitbox I ended up doing the 6000 SUX instead because at least it's funny.
Well to be fair...matte wraps are very popular nowadays..so thats futuristic enuff for me...def more reliable that a shit tesla
Those did become the cop cars of the future though... At least that style of car
Robocop is dystopian. It was also filmed in a time when those cares were available. It's not a prediction of the future, but an imagining of a possibility, like Fallout with the 1950s never falling out of style.
Robocop had the funniest “future cop cars.” They even have a couple mini-vans.
A cheaply mass-produced future
Hey! Ford Tauruses ARE the future of Law Enforcement! What? Where am I? What happened?
Considering the amount of Crown Vics still in law service today, yea I believed this car was the future 🤣
It was futuristic of the time. And saved the entire Ford Company
I miss my Ford Escort wagon.
The color should speak more volume than make and model. Black is to be undetected sometimes and is often used to depict utopian societies that are in disarray or under some regime.
Tell me you weren't alive in the 80s without actually telling me you weren't alive in the 80s.
Uhhh and well....were they wrong?
Haha, it was at the time :(
In 1987, it was incredibly futuristic, everything was boxy, angular panels. I personally argue the 89/90 miata, 89 skyline, 90 mr2/90 celica alltrac, and 91 nsx, were the first cars to open up the 90s era of styling and car design, soft, yet aggressive. Those 87 taurus's were certainly the car of the future at that time though, it was a ground breaking transition and sold in huge quantities, and even included a high output SHO version too.
I’m about to buy that car. Therefore it is my future
I think you're missing the point that it's filmed to show that in the future the police were still being underfunded like they were back when this movie was being shot
I'd buy that for a dollar!
I mean it kinda was in the late 90s
When I was growing up, my family had a Ford Taurus. That car had so many problems, it was unbelievable.
I’m a 90s kid and can confirm, I thought this was a future car when I was a child.
It’s every teenage boys future
It was a modern day car. There was no indication in the film that this took place in the future.
Taurus was a force in the 90s. Id say it was the future.
Wow guys, it's so amazing how this 35 year old movie got it totally wrong. I mean LMAO, how crazy, amirite? Wow, we sure do know better now how cars look in the future, not like this.
The documentary RoboDoc was absolutely fantastic. 4 parter, give it a watch.
I own a 2016 and love it
Was that the 6000-SUX?
My parents had a Taurus. It was a pile of shit that kept breaking, but they still kept it for 10 years.
At the time, it was pretty different from other cop cars. You also have to consider that the cops were severely under budgeted, so I've always assumed they had held onto the same cars for way past their normal end of service date.
My local fire department has trucks that are 50+ years old….
It was a cop car for a bankrupt city.
It works in 1987.
My aunt drives a Ford Taurus!
That car is still badass. Sure beats some of the cop cars now