DC CarCare

Every car enthusiast has "special" cars that they have owned through the years.  If we are lucky we get to keep some of them.  Most of us don't have the luxury of owning every car we would like, so memories become our "garage".  This page is dedicated to one of those cars that I am lucky enough to still have.  A car I used for a daily driver for many years, and recently retired to occasional use, that is very special to me, my 1989 Ford Taurus SHO.

1989 One Lap of America SHO, "Team SHO FEAR"  

     In 1996, I asked two of my friends to co-drive in a One Lap of America adventure.  That is the direct descendent of the infamous Cannonball Run and it's still put on by Brock Yates of Car & Driver Magazine fame.  He turned it into a legal event with non-timed stages between race tracks all over the U.S.

    We entered my 140,000 mile (at that time, now 180,000 miles) mostly stock 1989 SHO in the Mid-Price Sedan class.  The only rule is the car had to sell for under $30,000 originally, but any modifications were allowed.  The winning car was a highly modified SS Impala with about 500 hp.  My 245 hp (net as tested by my own DynoJet dynamometer) SHO took a trophy in third place and finished 34th out of 100 cars.  We astounded lots of teams with the ability of this sedan and the skill of my friend, Mike Benet who did most of the track driving.  I did the drag events and our other friend did the ovals.  We did almost 5000 miles in 7 days visiting 13 tracks including Watkins Glen, Memphis Motorsports Park and more.

    Today, the decals are gone, but the car is now lowered with Eibach springs.  A new set of Koni adjustable struts complement strut tower braces, high flow exhaust and cats, custom 16" wheels made for the Firestone Firehawk series, BFG R1 race tires, under drive pulleys and an Amsoil bypass oil filter.  I have customized my SHO with the special production composite hood from the 91 SHO Plus model, the 24V DOHC badges from that same version.  The brakes have been upgraded from the stock 10" front disks to the new (almost) 12" disks from the 1996 and up V8 SHO with Carbotech brake pads.  The car also has the ROD shifter conversion on it from the 1991 and later manual transmission SHO's.  This allows for more secure and solid shifts.

    In 1999 I took the car to Mike Courtney's shop in Minnesota and had a new Quaife torque biasing differential put in the transmission.  This means the car now pulls out of corners at full throttle with authority.  The weakest link in the SHO on a road course is now solved.  With this differential, we could have easily taken 2nd place in class in the 1996 One Lap.

    Note in the picture above, taken in September of 1998, with the new Eibach springs, how level the car stays in a high speed corner.  There is very little dive, squat or lean.  Many "sports coupes" would love to be this controlled in a corner!

    Inside the car is prepared for highway driving with CD player, Valentine One radar detector, scanner and CB radio.  A 10" subwoofer in a 3 cu ft box in the trunk is powered by a dedicated 200 watt amp.  The stock Premium six speaker sound system suits my ears with the addition of real bass.

"At Blackhawk Farms Raceway in 1996 waiting for inspection at the SHOcago Convention"    

This SHO has raced at these famous drag strips: Great Lakes, Cordova, Milan, Mason-Dixon and Quaker City.  The car and I have done two Skip Barber schools and one Bob Bondurant school.  My son and I co-drove the car on Blackhawk Farms racetrack for the 1996 SHO Registry convention and I drove it for 1 1/2 hours of lapping at Mid-Ohio in August 1998.  IT has also run at Road Atlanta and Hallet Raceway in Oklahoma.  More recently the car and I have enjoyed high speed laps at Summit Point and back to Blackhawk Farms for the 2003 SHO Covnention.  I also have had lapping at Putnam Park racetrack.  The car runs in E/SP class at SCCA autocrosses and did year-round duty rain, shine or snow as my daily transportation from 1991 through about fall 1999.  

    My experience in detailing cars has kept this old SHO going and fooling people into thinking it's years younger than it is.  I do a lot of my own maintenance, but when the major stuff needs fixing, I go to Performance Plus in Madison, WI.  These people know more about SHO's than most other people in the world.....would want to know.   They specialize in maintenance and modification of Ford products.