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Ford Taurus SHO or Contour SVT??? wat would u pick?

95_Mystique

Hard-core CEG'er
Joined
Jul 19, 2007
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Middletown, Pa
Just curious as to what ya'll think. If u had to pick between any year Contour SVT and a 1989-1995 Ford Taurus SHO MTX, what would you pick?
 
well its a contour forum..dont be surprised to get biased answers. thoug some of have owned both. i'd get a sho again if i could find a well maint. one. which can be hard. a red on black 95 mtx,not loaded though. no sunroof and manual pasg. seat. although not the quickest year(89-90s') it does have the upgraded brakes and better looks over the 1st gen's.
 
Just curious as to what ya'll think. If u had to pick between any year Contour SVT and a 1989-1995 Ford Taurus SHO MTX, what would you pick?

contour svt.

Taurus SHO parts are rediculiously hard to come by, contour svt parts can be improvised, EX... blow up your motor, throw a 3L in there instead.

plus the pre96 SHO MTX differentials were easier to grenade then the ones in the contour SVT.
 
The SHO's were available in an Automatic. CSVT's were not. The SHO will have a larger back seat and trunk.

The CSVT's are faster to ~60mph than the SHO, but the SHO was better from 60 on. (Personal Expierence with only 1 other SHO)

Being a lighter smaller car the SVT will handle better.

I looked at SHO's in 98 before I bought a Maxima. Unless you need the extra room or an Automatic I would go with a 2000 CSVT.

Now, if you were looking at a SHOGun, I would take it in a Minute over the CSVT.
 
If you add the final odometer readings on my two SHOs, you'd get about 371,438. I've spent a lot of time around these cars. The second one was a project that a buddy of mine and I rebuilt over about 18 months, replacing about everything you could imagine.

I'd love to own another 5-speed SHO. A tremendously gratifying car that pulled so hard you'd think its nose would start glowing from the atmospheric resistance. They're pretty tough to find in great shape -- most people enjoyed them enough to drive them around the world five or so times. Or eight, in the case of my Deep Jewel Green one, checking in with 221,938 miles on the clock, and still running, when I sold her.

The SHO is a drastically different car than the Contour SVT. This may go without saying, but it wouldn't be immediately obvious to the casual observer. Both cars are four-door, front drive, and sport smallish 6-pots with lots going on in the heads. Both even use a dual runner intake plenum.

However, the SHO eats up the interstate miles far more easily, due to its longer wheelbase and greater sound deadening. Compared to the SVT, it feels like a Spanish galleon when you wheel it around in the twisties; the SVT reminds of a go-cart. However, I found that both cars were equally maneuverable, with the SHO transmitting a little bit clearer picture about what the tires' contact patches were up to. Turn in with the Contour is swifter, but the SHO takes a firmer set mid-corner, and is a bit more confidence inspiring at eight or nine-tenths than its smaller stablemate.

As you put the pedal on the wood, the difference in the engines is palpable. The SHO V-6 has an unusual firing order -- it is firing two cylinders at once at all times. This creates a similarly unusual, yet pleasing, sound, particularly at wide open throttle. The Contour's exhaust note is wonderfully tuned right from the factory, and sounds race-bred, almost frenetic, as the revs race toward the redline.

Inside, the comfort and space nod goes to the SHO, but the Contour SVT's excellent seats are not far behind the benchmark furniture found in the fire-breathing Taurus. Over the miles, the Taurus interior, at least from 1992-1995, is a bit more prone to squeaks and noises than that of the SVT. Hard plastic trim edges in Taurus' door panels are likely to blame.

Because the SHO is older, the parts arena is more punctuated with drama than that of the CDW-27 based car. The aftermarket, in many cases, has stepped in admirably for the SHO -- Felpro, for instance, provides head gaskets, and Moog provides strut collar repair kits for cars whose undersides have seen a bit too much salt. That said, there are still some issues with replacement parts -- control arms, with their integrated ball joints and bushing, have not been available from Ford for some time, and the current crop of aftermarket replacements seem dubious as of this writing, with reported concerns about longevity and overall quality.

If I were able to pick either car brand new, I think I'd be inclined to choose a 1994 SHO in Deep Jewel Green with a full leather Mocha interior, but it would be a close race. The SVT is a truly remarkable car, and remains entertaining to this day, some 82,700 miles since I bought her.
 
My boss has an older MTX white SHO that he might sell that I've been thinking about. The problem is, I don't know which would be my daily driver and which would be my track car!
 
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well,kirks shop out in mass. is to far from you. thats all the help you'll ever need:laugh: green is the worst color on the sho's...so,everyday. black or red is were its at:laugh:
 
Haha, that's the whole point of the SHO! It's a ford taurus! Having it in the lamest color just adds insult to injury when you put a hurtin on someone with it!
 
Haha, that's the whole point of the SHO! It's a ford taurus! Having it in the lamest color just adds insult to injury when you put a hurtin on someone with it!

Though I would hardly call the green lame, it is more common than the others. That's ok with me. Perhaps it makes the car a bit more of a sleeper, perhaps not. I certainly don't have to impress anybody, but it is nice to know that you could smoke plenty of far more expensive cars and they wouldn't see you coming. :cool: Same goes for the SVT.
 
yeah...thats what I was getting at...just didn't come out as nice! I actually see an older green sho on my commute everyday and I drool over it!

Maybe todras will chime in as to why he sold his red SHO a few years ago. That thing was hot!
 
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i sold two sho's this past year. a 95 greenbean and a 91 goldie. plus hood,slicers,aluminum sfb's and solid mounts,lw flywheel.
they are very high maintance,is prob. why they sold them
 
i sold two sho's this past year. a 95 greenbean and a 91 goldie. plus hood,slicers,aluminum sfb's and solid mounts,lw flywheel.
they are very high maintance,is prob. why they sold them

If you're interested in a black 1991 with a 3.2L and stage 1 cams, plus many other goodies, shoot me a PM.
 
my friend has a black SHO and I hate it. i think tauruses and (i know this might be blasphemy around these parts, but whatever:) pre-99 contours are ugly as crap. so any day of the week i'd pick a CSVT...they look much sportier in my opinion and frankly i like my 99 contour SE's interior better than my bud's 98 SHO.
ohh, on the other hand, the 2008 taurus is AWESOME. if they made an SHO of that, i'd grab it in half a second.
 
my friend has a black SHO and I hate it. i think tauruses and (i know this might be blasphemy around these parts, but whatever:) pre-99 contours are ugly as crap. so any day of the week i'd pick a CSVT...they look much sportier in my opinion and frankly i like my 99 contour SE's interior better than my bud's 98 SHO.
ohh, on the other hand, the 2008 taurus is AWESOME. if they made an SHO of that, i'd grab it in half a second.

Did you get your name because of MST3K by chance?
 
my friend has a black SHO and I hate it. i think tauruses and (i know this might be blasphemy around these parts, but whatever:) pre-99 contours are ugly as crap. so any day of the week i'd pick a CSVT...they look much sportier in my opinion and frankly i like my 99 contour SE's interior better than my bud's 98 SHO.
ohh, on the other hand, the 2008 taurus is AWESOME. if they made an SHO of that, i'd grab it in half a second.

I would not put the Gen III SHOs (1996-1999) in with either the Gen I or Gen IIs (1989-1995). While the V8s are decent cars, they lack both the performance and the personality of their predecessors, and they're not nearly as good looking.

The 5-speed SHOs ran to sixty in 6.4 seconds. The automatics from 1993-1995 managed it in 7.2. The V8 SHO, despite the addition of 15 more horsepower, took 7.5.
 
I own both.

ive had the SVT for two plus years

i've had the SHO for 3 months maybe.

my SHO is a 95 MTX with suspension and some performance mods.

my SVT has just about everything done to it i could N/A. it's got a ton of goodies.

with both cars in the current state, the SVT takes it hands down.

stock for stock, it would be a hard choice. the 3L in my SVT will destroy the 3L in my SHO. the SHO has big bore butterflies, shoshop underdrive pulleys, a Shoshop Y pipe, and a dynomax cat-back. it also has a centerforce clutch.

even in this state, and the SHO having 150k, it's still a fun ride. it clunks like crazy, but its nothing a wrench and some new bushings can't fix later on.

my SVT used to make noise, but after refurbishing and improving the suspension, it's quiet as can be (minus the 2.5" exhaust with only one muffler :) )

currently i can't compare the two. the cars are in the same class, but from different eras. if you want to put someone in the back seat, go on a roadtrip, or beat up 5.0 mustangs, get a SHO. if you want to out turn most any car on the road, and do a motor swap, get a SVT!
 
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