Not Honda, Not Toyota: This Was The Best-Selling Car Of 1995

Although it's pickup trucks (namely the Ford F-Series) both currently and historically rank at the top of America's vehicle sales charts, automotive history gets a lot more interesting when you look specifically at the most popular passenger cars in America over time. In fact, if you go back 30 years to the best-selling car of 1995, you'll find a once ubiquitous sedan that went from being one of the most common cars on the road to being completely discontinued in the late 2010s.

If you have any memory of driving in the 1990s, you probably know we're talking about the Ford Taurus, which wasn't just America's best-selling car for the year 1995, but for most of the mid-1990s. The Taurus is easily one of the most important and successful cars that Ford has ever sold and was a highly influential car for the industry. The fact that the Taurus went from dominance to discontinuation in a relatively short period of time shows just how fast things can change in the auto market.

More broadly, looking back on the success that the Taurus (along with its Mercury counterpart, the Sable) had during the 1990s takes us back to a time when the mid-sized sedan was the bread and butter of the American car market, and how that segment has been increasingly taken over by the crossover SUV.

Before we get to the mid-1990s sales dominance of the Taurus, we have to go back to the '80s. The debut of the '86 Taurus was a big deal, not just for Ford but for the auto industry itself. With its aging car lineup under heavy threat from Japanese imports, Ford went back to the drawing board for its new sedan. The Taurus project was both expensive and ambitious, intending to pull Ford out of its late '70s and early '80s doldrums and into the '90s.

We might take it for granted now, but the Taurus was an absolute game-changer by the standards of its time. Its design was sleek and European-inspired, with an exterior and interior that looked at least a whole generation newer than other American sedans. But the Taurus was never designed to be a high-end car; it was always built to be a bread-and-butter, volume sedan, and accomplish that goal it did. The Taurus quickly climbed the sales charts, and along with the Toyota Camry and Honda Accord, helped to establish the formula for the modern, mid-sized, front-drive sedan that would dominate the market for years to come.

Ford debuted the second-generation Taurus in 1992, and after finishing runner-up to the Accord in sales in previous years, this was the year that the Taurus finally took the top spot in passenger car sales, beginning five straight years at number one. In 1995, Ford would sell over 366,000 examples of the Taurus.

1995 also ended up being a pivotal time for the Taurus. This was the last model year of the second-generation car and its familiar profile before Ford introduced the radically different oval-shaped Taurus for 1996. The new Taurus would take the best-selling passenger car title for one more year, before the Toyota Camry overtook it in 1997. Though the Taurus would never again be the best-selling car in America, it continued to be a big seller through the rest of the '90s and into the 2000s, even as it faced increased competition from competing sedans and, increasingly, small SUVs.

The Taurus's role as Ford's volume sedan would come to an end in the mid-2000s with the arrival of the new Fusion. Ford even discontinued the Taurus for a short time in 2006, but the still-valuable Taurus nameplate returned quickly, on a larger sedan that sat above the Fusion in the hierarchy. For a short time, there was even a 'Taurus X' crossover. 

None of these newer versions came close to the car's peak '80s and '90s popularity, though, and Ford finally discontinued the Taurus in 2019 (along with other sedan models) as the company shifted its strategy toward crossovers and SUVs. As the dominance of the Taurus fades from memories, for Toyota and Honda, the Camry and Accord have endured — no longer being their brand's best-sellers, but still important in a market dominated by CUVs as well as newcomers like Tesla.