The first Ford that I can remember, is the one of my uncle. I was about seven years old. My uncle lived in the Dutch province of Zeeland and from time to time he visited my grandmother in his bright orange Taunus. A TC I Coupe. For those times it was a large, spacious car. The first cars of my father that I can remember, were a Citroen GS and after that a Simca 1500. After the latter he bought his first Ford. A Granada 1.7.L. After a while he exchanged it for a bue Granade of the Royal House, a 2.8L Ghia with all the gadgets. The licenseplate was GY-25-HS. After a year or 2, my father traded it for a newer Granada. This car also originated from the Royal House. The license plate was KT-12-NJ.
I learned to drive a car in a Ford Taunus 1.6L Combi. We used that car to transfer parts between workshops. The distance between our two workshops was approximately 300 metres. The car drove these short distances for a while, but suddenly the valves burned. The car was replaced by a Taunus 2.0 combi. A 6 cylinder. We picked it up in Oud Beijerland (also Zeeland). It’s topspeed was 180 km/h. The car’s sparks had to be cleaned every month because of the short distances it drove, otherwise the car would run out of power. When cleaned, the car would drive as if it were new.
Once my father bought a new, bigger workshop, the car became obsolete. We deceided to stall the car in the workshop to try to restore it and fix it up. Alas, at the end of ’94 we were short on space and we took it to a junkyard. Just a couple of months too soon, because after a month or two, I bought this Taunus GT.
In ;94 I bought a ‘Snoek’ (Citroen DS) and tore it apart. I wanted to restore it completely. But because the Snoek’s construction was rather complicated, I wanted to buy a driving Snoek in Febuary ’95 as an example to what the old restored Snoek would look like. So, I went to a DS-specialist in Ermelo to see if he had a suitable candidate for sale. When I arrived at the dealer, I saw that he had a Ford Taunus Coupe for sale. I was sold. After a chit chat with the salesman, I found out that he brought it with him from Paris. The original owner was an Embassy employee, who brought it from Spain to Paris. The French licenseplate number was 258 HND 75. I bought the Taunus the next day. It had drove about 78.000 km.
This Taunus was more luxuriously equipped than it’s European counterpart. The differences are: tainted glass, airconditioning, powersteering, automatic gears, wooden dashboard, leather interior, rev counter, extra voltage counter, oilpressure counter, stereo radio with cassette, electric antenna and a digital clock. A few other nice details that are different are the extra bars in the bumper and a carter-protector underneath the car.
The bottom was packed with little dents caused by parkingdamage. On the rear, the rearlight was damaged and a plastic bumpercorner was missing. The bumpercorner could be ordered at the Ford dealer, which I did. The rearlight unfortunately, could not. The car was nearly rustfree, with the exception of some rust on a few dents.
The rearlight that comes with this Taunus, is totally different than that of a Taunus TC I, II or III. I first tried to order it at the Ford dealer. They couldn’t find the partnumber on the partslist. They also called to Ford Nederland, but they weren’t familiar with the part. After that I came into contact with a person in South-Africa, who restores old Beatles there. It appears that a lot of Taunusses are still being driven there. They were manufactured there for a few more years than in Europe. The name is different aswell, they are called Ford Cortina instead of Ford Taunus. I faxed him a picture of my Taunus, but he reported that this Taunus was never delivered there. Then I tried to order it via the company that imports parts from the U.S.A. They couldn’t help me either. As a last desperate attempt, I placed an advertisement in ‘Autoweek’ (a Dutch car magazine). I got a reply from a member of the Ford Taunus M Club who liked to see the car. In the Taunus still lay the original Spanish manual. In that manual were the address and telephone number of the garage that delivered the new Taunus. At work I had a Spanish collegue, whom I had shown the manual. He instantly called the garage in Spain and asked for the rearlight. They said that it could be ordered and that it would cost approximately fl.150,- (Dutch Guilders). Later it appeared that it wasn’t possible anymore to order the parts, because the car was older than 10 years.
After much asking and calling, I deceided to found the domainname www.taunus.nl at the end of 1998 and open my own website. I received a lot of positive reactions from around the globe, also from Argentina. If I responded to these reactions, I often never got a reply. Until in March ’99 I came into contact with a man from Argentina who wanted to help me. He recommended me to purchase to imitation rearlights. I transferred the money to his account and he bought and sent me the lights. The difference between imitation and original is highly noticeable. The quality is poor and there is no reflector in the rearlight. When I received the lights, the reverselight glass of one of the lamps was broken. Moreover, the glass was gone from the lightunit. I had to paste it on the unit myself. The other lamp was also constructed poorly. I had to take it apart and glue it back together.
The Taunus brakes were bad in the beginning. A friend of mine took a look at it and came to the conclusion that the main brakecylinder was refilled with the wrong type of Oil. Because of this, all the rubbers in the in the main brakecylinder were stricken. Fortunately, the oil wasn’t distributed completely over the entire brakecircuit. It was only in the main brakecylinder. It had to be replaced. The cylinder was of Argentine make. I tried to get it at a lot of places, to no avail – noone knew this type of cylinder. A clubmember of the Taunus Club still had a special brakecylinder of a Ford Taunus of 1981. It appeared to fit in with the use of some fillrings. The Taurus brakes like new again.
In October 1996 I started taking the Taunus apart. The windows, the interior, bumpers, strips etc. were all removed. The rims were replaced by spares to prevent damaging them. A 2300 4 cylinder engine was in the Taunus, probably originating from a Ford U.S.A. Some say that a Ford Mustang has the same engine, while others say that a Ford Tempo has one. There was a tear in the intakeheader of the engine and it ran very raw. That’s why I deceided to replace the engine with a V6 from a European Ford. Even more so because parts are readily available for a V6. I bought a 2.8i engine of a Ford Granada from a member of the Taunus Club. The engine was built in between Christmas and Newyear 1996.
Afterwards the car had a paintjob and all dents, scratches and rust were professionally removed. The original color wasn’t available, so we picked a color that matched it the best. After the paintjob, the color came out abit greener than was anticipated.
After painting the car, I sprayed wax in all holes and hollow shafts – using 10 liters of wax in total. This wax won’t dry out, but will always remain sticky because of which an optimal protection against rust is begotten. I then started rebuilding the car. At this moment, the doors en windows have been placed and the interior is again attached, most strips are in place and the bumpers are ready to be placed on the car.
The Taunus was brought to Van Egmond (www.anti-rust.com) in Alphen aan de Rijn (a Dutch city in the Dutch province of Zuid-Holland) in the beginning of April 1999. Once there, they conserved the bottom and inside of the car. They first cleaned the chassisbars under high pressure (240 bar), after which they dried it by blowing dry air through it. Then they applied a special wax coating on the bars. The bottom was also cleaned under high pressure after which it’s been tectyled. You can find more information on this process on their webstsite http://www.antirust.com
As of now (14 September 2000) the car has been checked by the RDW (a governmental organisation that checks and approves/disapproves cars for use on the public roads). It passwd the test the first time. The only thing that had to be changed was the left headlight and one seatbelt. Now the waiting begins for the licenseplate.
Some optical and mechanical things still aren’t right. A good part of the car has to be repainted, the front windshield is leaking and isn’t tainted (the original died on me). The doorhandles are oxidized, the valves of the engine rattle and the oil light flickered if the engine was running stationary. Also, the engine lacks pulling power if it’s forst to up the rv rate. An acquaintance of mine did a thourough investigation and it appeared that one tumbleraxis was worn out, the other axis wasn’t that great either and the oilpump is no good. He reinstalled it. It runs much quieter now and pulls up a lot faster. But that isn’t all. I’m looking for the following engine parts.
This is what still needs to be done on the GT:
I’ll try to keep this website updated as much as humanly possible. So, please, by all means come check the site to see if things have changed.
If you have any questions, feel free to send a mail to: Ford@taunus.nl