Owning a Taurus SHO has been a dream ever since a close friend of mine and I took a ride in an early 90's model back when we were in high school. After an 11 year hiatus and the 2010 Taurus SHO revival was introduced, I told myself that I eventually had to have one. With 365HP and all wheel drive, the car absolutely RIPS and pushes your eyeballs into the back of your skull when you do a resting launch with your foot on the brake.

I managed to pick up this exquisite 2011 specimen with 71,000 miles under Ford's Certified Pre-Owned umbrella, which gives the car a 12 month/12,000 mile bumper to bumper and 7 year/100,000 mile powertrain warranty. After working on the salesman for a bit on my 2011 Dodge Avenger Lux trade-in value, he agreed to what I was expecting. Before taxes, docs, title transfer, the beast was mine for $16,997!

The car is absolutely perfect and is nearly a fully loaded model (sans performance package and adaptive cruise control). The body panels are all straight and true and the paint is in incredible condition. I spent over an hour examining every inch of this car's exterior for issues and came back with very minimal stuff that I can wheel out if necessary. Here's some pictures:


I'm pretty sure the painted trim and wheels are why the car was priced so low. I don't believe the dealer realized the previous owner only used plasti-dip on everything instead of real paint. I really like the semi-murdered out look of car, so I think I'm going to keep it the same for now. The wheels will ultimately become winter beaters and I'm considering getting some 2013-2016 OEM "flower petal" wheels for the thawed months here in Michigan.


Bye Avenger!!!




What a cool paint color!! Before I went to test drive the car, I honestly didn't realize the black paint on the SHO was metallic!


The cockpit of this thing makes me feel like I'm in a space ship!

Commuting to work and road trips will never be the same!!! The car will get a spirited work out in August when we comfortably venture down south to the Tail of the Dragon, which all of you know has 318 curves in an 11 mile stretch of US highway. Before heading down there though, I'm seriously considering converting the brake system to the 2014+ system that has 1" larger rotors, larger brake pad surface area, and ventilated rotors for the rear. I also have an LMS MyCal on the way.

Welcome!! Great introduction, looks like someone took care of her. That paint really pops in the right light.  Glad you're  here, enjoy.

Congrats and welcome!

Welcome to the EB community, emulsifide, congrats on your new ride.  Very happy to see you were able to punch the button on realizing your dream, that was a LONG wait   Car does look fabulous, we look forward to more tales of adventure with your SHO!  Hopefully the prev owner also left some goodies in the car for you to enjoy, which CPO folks won't generally catch

as a person with personal fca knowledge, the jump from an avenger to a sho is beyond description. the avenger was not one of fca better moves but atleast made by them unlike the old mitsy avengers, similar to my beatter '02 stratus r/t. even with mileage on the sho a great move.

Congrats!! She looks great! Did the previous owner plastidip the chrome accents around the tail lights as well? (Curious what that would look like)..

Welcome aboard the E.B.P.F Partner and great looking SHO you have there,any pic's inside the engine bay for us....also think a member is selling his oem Flower Power wheels and tires LMK and best of luck and thanks for joining.  Z 

Welcome aboard.

Welcome emulsifide! I recognized your post from /r/cars. I told you E.B.P.F. is a very welcoming community, glad to see you join!

Love the color.  Welcome to EBPF.

Quote from: Wardog692 on July 22, 2016, 11:57:27 AM
Welcome emulsifide! I recognized your post from /r/cars. I told you E.B.P.F. is a very welcoming community, glad to see you join!

Yes you did Wardog682!!!! Thanks everyone for the warm welcome!! It's great to finally be here with a SHO instead of lurking on all of the forums related to one for years.

Quote from: mval on July 22, 2016, 10:13:34 AM
as a person with personal fca knowledge, the jump from an avenger to a sho is beyond description. the avenger was not one of fca better moves but atleast made by them unlike the old mitsy avengers, similar to my beatter '02 stratus r/t. even with mileage on the sho a great move.

You know, the Avenger wasn't a "bad" car....it was friggin boring. Mine had the Pentastar V6, so it wasn't a slouch (in fact, aside from the Wrangler, the Avenger has been by far the best implementation of the Pentastar platform so far given it's power to weight ratio), but I came off of a Volvo S60R that had 300HP, 300TQ and AWD. If anything, the SHO is an immensely better continuation of the fun I had with the Volvo.

Quote from: ZSHO on July 22, 2016, 10:44:30 AM
Welcome aboard the E.B.P.F Partner and great looking SHO you have there,any pic's inside the engine bay for us....also think a member is selling his oem Flower Power wheels and tires LMK and best of luck and thanks for joining.  Z 

Thanks! I'll PM you if I'm still looking for wheels when I get back from the Dragon next month. I'll get a picture of the engine bay this afternoon, but I'll warn you that it's bone stock.

Quote from: StealBlueSho on July 22, 2016, 10:19:23 AM
Congrats!! She looks great! Did the previous owner plastidip the chrome accents around the tail lights as well? (Curious what that would look like)..

Thanks! Yes, the PO did chrome the accents around the tail lights. I'll grab a picture of that as well tonight. It looks good, but overall all of the plastidip needs to be redone on the car (it's peeling in a few spots).


For completeness of who I am and what I'm all about, this car is my daily driver that will all four seasons of weather. My weekend warrior is a supercharged 2001 British Racing Green Miata:

Funny you say that about going from Volvo to Ford.  Reminds me of when the SHO was originally Yamaha centric, then Volvo picked up Yamaha for their 4.4 L V8.  Sadly not as successful though!  Don't know what happened with their 5.0 V8 Supercars program ...

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Quote from: StealBlueSho on July 22, 2016, 10:19:23 AM
Congrats!! She looks great! Did the previous owner plastidip the chrome accents around the tail lights as well? (Curious what that would look like)..

Here you go:




The plastidip at this point needs some touching up. I'll probably do that over the next couple of weeks.

Here's the engine bay shot I also promised:

Quote from: emulsifide on July 22, 2016, 08:01:42 PM

Quote from: StealBlueSho on July 22, 2016, 10:19:23 AM
Congrats!! She looks great! Did the previous owner plastidip the chrome accents around the tail lights as well? (Curious what that would look like)..

Here you go:




The plastidip at this point needs some touching up. I'll probably do that over the next couple of weeks.

Here's the engine bay shot I also promised:

The engine bay looks great...new AC Delco battery and looks like the previous owner had an Airaid intake IMO.  Z

Quote from: emulsifide on July 21, 2016, 10:46:11 PM
Commuting to work and road trips will never be the same!!! The car will get a spirited work out in August when we comfortably venture down south to the Tail of the Dragon, which all of you know has 318 curves in an 11 mile stretch of US highway. Before heading down there though, I'm seriously considering converting the brake system to the 2014+ system that has 1" larger rotors, larger brake pad surface area, and ventilated rotors for the rear. I also have an LMS MyCal on the way.

When will you be running the Dragon?  My car club has a getaway meet this coming weekend there!  We have one near the Dragon (Tellico Plains) every year and we caravan up to the Dragon and make a few group runs throughout the weekend!  It is definitely one of my favorite stretches of roads to drive.  I'm also a fan of the Cherohala Skyway for the more scenic type of driving.