It’s Swag Swensday! Each week, we kick down some sweet, sweet swag to Autopian Members, the cool-kids club for car people that you really should have joined by now. Not a Member yet? You can get in on the fun with a Cloth Tier membership for a mere seven bucks a month (or break off $50 to cover the year, and it works out to way less than five dollars a month – it’s like 14 cents a day!). Become a Member today!
RoboCop (the 1987 version) has one of moviedom’s all-time laziest science fiction “future cars,” but it’s also one of my favorites. As any car person who has seen the film will tell you, the police cars that patrol the “Detroit” of the Robocop universe (filming was actually done in Dallas) are modified 1986 Ford Tauruses. And by “modified,” I mean they were painted flat black and dressed with standard 1980s patrol car bumpers and light bars, and … that’s it.
There were plans for the cops and Robo himself to drive futuristic vehicles constructed by the same team that built the notorious 6000 SUX, but the story goes that director Paul Verhoeven thought the patrol cars looked ridiculous and scrapped them on the spot. With no time left for a bespoke design, Verhoeven saw a Taurus and said (to paraphrase) “futuristic enough.” And the rest is movie history!
… and soon to become part of your own car-knick-nack history, since The Autopian is giving away this swell 1/24 scale die-cast model of RoboCop’s Taurus, complete with a RoboCop figure to stand guard – but not drive the vehicle, unless you remove his legs. Which, oddly enough, was required to fit Peter Weller into the Taurus when in costume as RoboCop. There’s some movie trivia for you.
Though inexpensive (around $30 on Amazon), Jada Toys has done a nice job of reproducing the Taurus in scale, complete with opening doors and hood.
The interior is more of a suggestion of the Taurus’ insides than a detailed reproduction, but who cares. The laptop is a nice touch though, as is the decal for the gauge faces.
Pop the hood and … hold up, RoboCop was driving an SHO? No, not in the movie at least, since the Taurus SHO didn’t even exist at the time, so Robo was matting the pedal on a 3.0-liter V6. But 1/24 scale Robo has a lot more power under his (possibly literally) lead foot, as that’s definitely the Yamaha-built 24-valve DOHC V6 rendered in plastic. Here’s the real thing, see?
Beneath the car, Jada has done what I assume is a reasonable job of duplicating some of the Taurus SHO’s underside details. There are also two big screw holes going through the exhaust, which I’m pretty sure the SHO did not have.
And here’s RoboCop! For a three-inch figure, I think he looks pretty good.
OK Members, watch your mailbox, RoboCop’s Taurus might be parked in there soon! Not a Member? Join today (or anytime before I make it to the post office) and you’ll be in the running.
More stuff to win next week!
All photos by Peter Vieira unless noted
If I win I will Go to Detroit and take a picture of the Robocop and Car in front of the Robocop Statue
Wrenches leave!
I had a teacher in high school who worked on the production for Rob-Cop, his favorite story to tell was about all the lube they had to go buy to get the robot-cop suit on and the looks from the checkout clerks. lol
Dead or alive, this is coming home to me
I always liked how in the book they were “Turbo-Cruisers” that had twin turbine engines under the hood. I should re-read the book. It also gave RoboCop a dog sidekick at the end.
There was a book? Strange. Never knew that. Also, was the dog also half robot? Doesn’t matter because robot or not, dog sidekick makes everything better. Unless it dies.
I believe it was a movie novelization by Ed Naha. The dog was a junkyard dog that Robo adopted.
Well, as a kid growing up in Metro Detroit watching this at the time, it felt “right”. The Taurus was still a brand new car, they weren’t just “Good Enough” They were like UFOs compared to their competition. For reference, here’s a 1987 Caprice that the DPD was actually driving at the time.
The Taurus was the perfect car for near future dystopian horror that it was projecting.
The top view of those Yamaha V6s was right up there with Alfa’s V6s as far as appearances go. I don’t know how they stacked up power and reliability wise, but they are both beautifully exotic to look at.
Not bad.
Some were supercharged later.
I’m sure you know about the turbo Alfas
Actually I was unaware of turbo Alfas or supercharged Yamahas. At the time, I couldn’t afford even n/a versions.
“YOU HAVE TEN SECONDS TO COMPLY…”
I know…not Robocop, but that other robot that sprays the entire conference room with bullets!
Dick, I’m very disappointed.
I’m sure it’s only a glitch, a temporary setback.
ED-209!!! I read somewhere that in the original cut of the movie, ED kept shooting the guy until he was basically paste. They had to cut it out to keep their R rating.
Jeez…if I recall what was left in the movie was pretty graphic, LOL.
I remember the scene. A live-fire boardroom demo probably wasn’t the best idea. I hope ICE doesn’t get their hands on any of those.
HELP!
My wife bought me a membership for my birthday but used her email address and I have no idea how to fix it to connect to my existing account here.
I emailed the tips email address a week or two back to ask for help (it’s literally the only email address i could find, but no reply so far)
I’m logged in here on my browser at work, but when I enter my email address to view ‘Account’ it says my email address does not exist.
Can anyone assist?
I’ve always had good luck emailing Matt Hardigree at matt@TheAutopian.com
Give that a try.
Thanks, i will
I’d be interested in hearing if you get a response from any one!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7U4ZYOBzEEs
Also, Kurtwood Smith’s Clarence Boddicker was the BEST BadA$$ ever!
My all-time favorite topshot (joke-wise) right here: https://www.theautopian.com/you-could-be-the-proud-owner-of-the-6000-sux-from-robocop/
And Ronny Cox too. His debut was in Deliverance, the one who played guitar in the dueling banjo scene and then was shot while canoeing. Both he and Kurtwood have said they were tired of playing nice guys, got these parts and had the time of their professional lives being the baddies.
Come on all you non members that are commenting on here, let’s keep this great site open and all these great writers employed.
They are providing us with great entertainment and knowledge of stuff that we all know we can’t find elsewhere.
For those that can’t truly afford it we appreciate you too.
I’ll become a member again when they fix the comments section.
(Zero idea if that is on the list of things to do as every employee I’ve asked ignores the question. Ignoring basic questions from members is another reason I am no longer a member)
And by “modified,” I mean they were painted flat black and dressed with standard 1980s patrol car bumpers and light bars, and … that’s it.
This is not quite it… Take a closer look. They modified Murphy’s car with conventional quad headlights behind the clear lenses, I think to make the car’s silhouette look better on camera when the headlights were on. Bummer that the model version doesn’t have that change!
And you gotta give Verhoeven more credit than a last minute decision… He saw the Taurus and thought it was futuristic at a time no one would have considered a Ford Taurus as a police car… and what did we see in 2013?! Ford Taurus police cars!
That movie predicted a bit too much of the future. Just watched it again the other night and the news reporters even talk about war taking place in Mexico. ED 209 is eerily similar to concerns about AI weapons being considered by our military now. I could go on.
I will plug my podcast, which is restarting soon (stay tuned!) – here’s our Robocop episode:
https://reelsandwheels.libsyn.com/robocop
Oh nice, I’ll check that out!
Thanks for expending the behind-the-scenes lore!
Not all of them had the weird modified headlights though.
https://imcdb.org/vehicle_6739-Ford-Taurus-DN5-1986.html
It was after the movie but Ford did offer the Taurus as a police car before the ’80s ended.
Really, by 1985 there should have been some sort of policy, perhaps wrt Federal funding- a maximum design age, mandating features like FWD and unibody, ban on more than 4 cylinders – excluding dinosaurs like the Crown Vic, Caprice and Diplomat from consideration for police duty. Pull the fleet sales rug out from under the dated-as-hell old-man cars.
Of course those limits would have to apply to trucks (and “trucks”) too.
So no cars up to the job?
Just specify pandas
Just normal FWD ’80s Detroit iron – K-car, Cavalier, Tempo etc with some serious angle iron welded across the front of the car underneath, about 1″ off the ground just ahead of the front wheels to prevent damage from jumping curbs by contacting the curb and stopping the cruiser without damage. To the car.
The officer driving? Well, he’d learn his lesson not to try jumping any more curbs!
Have you seen the abc drama series of Max Headroom?
Twenty minutes into the future
People ran into Peter Weller walking around Memphis in the Buckaroo days.
There always was a Memphis connection, even in the book.
I hope this goes to someone in the Detroit Area, so we can get a picture of the 3″ with the 11′ Robocop figure. https://www.google.com/maps/search/robocop+statue+detroit/@42.3511333,-83.044116,128m/data=!3m1!1e3
3″ RoboCop can become an 11′ RoboCop if you place him close enough to the lens
Falling Dick Jones waves his freakishly long arms in your general direction.
Seriously, WTF was up with that puppet
In Detroit. Will make this happen. If Autopian would just hand over their membership enrolment data to me I will make sure the raffle is fair and free of cheating. As long as I win.