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In summer 2024 i purchased one of my dream cars, a Ford Taunus. The version i bought is a 1976 model which was the first model year for the TC2 generation of the Taunus. I like the TC1 generation with the so called „Knudsen Nase” front end the most which my grandad bought a 1975 TC1 Turnier in 1977 and kept it until 1999. Sadly that car is gone for a long time so i have been on the search for a good condition Taunus and came across a TC2 Turnier whose only difference to the TC1 is the front end and a different steering wheel, near exact same car outside of those differences. Because mine is the Turnier station wagon version the rear end was not changed at all so it has same rear end as the TC1 Turnier and so i bought a Taunus that is very similar to the one that my grandad had.

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Small History of the Taunus brand and models
The Taunus is a mountain range in Germany and when Ford of Germany was developing models in the 1930s they decided to make a new model that would be a further development of the Ford Eifel and this new model would bear the model name Taunus G93A.

After the war this same model was being produced but not under the model name Taunus G73A with some small differences compared to pre war G93A version. After Germany got back a bit on its feet post war in the 1950s, Ford of USA decided to make a completely seperate brand in Germany called Taunus. Back in the 1950s there was Ford USA, Ford France, Ford UK and Ford Germany all of which were completely seperate from each other and making their own seperate cars.
In 1952 the brand Taunus was established and German Fords were from now on were under the brand name Taunus and the first car under this brand was the P1 12m model. P stood for Projekt (project in English) and P1 indicated the first project under the new brand and 12m stood for roughly 1.2L displacement engine with M meaning Meisterstück (masterpiece in English). The brand logo was also different than regular Ford logo, the Taunus brand’s logo was the same as the coat of arms of city Köln, where Ford of Germany was located in.
The P1 model was roughly a D segment car in todays terms and during its production run it was accompanied by bigger E segment models such as the P2 and the P3 models. In 1962 the P1 was out of production and was replaced by the P4 model which had a longitudinally placed Köln V4 engine driving the front wheels and at the time the P4 came out, the bigger P3 was still being made. While the P3 would be replaced by the P5 and then later the P7 series, the P4 would be replaced by the P6 model in 1966 which was mostly a P4 with couple of technical changes and its looks were facelifted a bit.
In around 1967 Ford USA decided to merge Ford Germany and Ford UK to cut down on costs because both divisions were making completely different cars and Ford thought they could merge both and they could make universal cars for the whole Europe, note that French section has been long sold to Simca during 1950s and was no longer a part of Ford so only UK and German Fords were merged.
This merging meant that a seperate Taunus brand also had no future, from 1967 onwards the German Fords dropped the name Taunus and the P7 which came out in 1967 were marketed as a Ford P7 17m/20m/26m however the Taunus logo was not dropped yet, these cars still had both Ford letterings and the Taunus logo on them as badges. The P7 range would be replaced by the co developed Granada in 1972 and the smaller P6 would also be replaced by a new co developed model in 1971. This new model would bear the name Taunus-Cortina and would go back to being rear wheel drive like the P1 12m.

Because in the UK they already had models called Cortina Mk.1 and Mk.2, this new Taunus-Cortina would be referred as the Cortina Mk.3 in the UK meanwhile it would be referred as the TC1 generation Taunus, TC standing for Taunus-Cortina and indicating the first generation of this new model range. The ad from above shows the TC1 with the knudsen nase front end which was specifically done after the personal request of Semon Knudsen from Ford USA. In the TC1 generation the Taunus and cortina still looked a bit different from the outside which can be seen below. The Taunus had the pointy knudsen front end meanwhile it was mostly flat in the Cortina. The Cortina also had a very big hump in the styling of the rear door which was not there in the TC1. The rear section of the cars were also a bit different, taillights were different and the overall shape of the rear fender area was different as well.
The Cortina Mk.3 was also made in left hand drive versions and sold in some other European countries as well such as Denmark. In Denmark people could buy either the Cortina Mk.3 or the TC1 Taunus both in left hand drive. The TC1 generation lasted from 1971 until 1975.
The TC2 Taunus / Cortina Mk.4 generations were completely identical and only difference between them was the Taunus was left hand drive and the Cortina was right hand drive and set up with imperial units. There were couple other small differences as well such as the Cortina models using Lucas made electronics meanwhile the Taunus models using Bosch electronics however outside of small differences like that they were basically the same car which can be seen below.
In the TC2 generation, the fastback coupe body style was dropped and only 2 and 4 door sedan and 4 door station wagon versions were available. The naming of the trim levels also changed. There was the standard Taunus and above it the Taunus L trims were carried from TC1 generation however the luxury XL was replaced with GL, the sporty GT was replaced with S and the sport luxury trim GXL was replaced with the Ghia trim level in the TC2. Ford bought the italian styling studio Ghia in around mid 1970s and after they bought them they wanted to implement their name as the highest trim level in their cars.
The TC2 generation was basically just a facelift of the TC1 version, underneath it was all still the same car with same drivetrain. The TC2 generation lasted from 1976 until 1979, the earlier year models like mine still carried over some stuff from TC1 such as the key, trunk opening handle and gauge cluster which were gradually changed in the following years of the TC2 generation.
The TC3 generation came in 1980 and lasted until 1982 and it was the last version sold in Europe. It was developed further in Turkey in late 80s together with using Sierra parts and the car also lived longer in Argentina compared to Europe but the last time the Taunus or Cortina name was used in Europe was in 1982.
The TC3 was again a facelifted version of the TC2, now it received more plastic bits on the outside and gained a couple of standard equipments such as an overflow tank and a fan clutch both of which were not found in TC1 and TC2 generations. The interior was now also slightly changed in the center dash area compared to TC1 and TC2. Underneath it was again the same car as TC1 generation.
Engine

The entire drivetrain of the TC series was mostly same during its entire production run in europe. The Taunus models were offered with 1.3, 1.6, 2.0L displacement Ford OHC „Pinto” engines and also offered with 2.0 and 2.3L displacement Ford Köln V6 engines and these engines came in all 3 generation of Taunus TC models. However in the UK, things were a little bit different.
In the UK the Mk.3 only came with 1.3 and 1.6 crossflow Kent engines and 1.3, 1.6, 2.0 OHC Pinto engines. The South African Cortina Mk.3’s were offered with 2.0 Essex V4 and 2.5, 3.0 Essex V6 engines as well. The Australian Cortinas were also offered with 200 and 250 cubic inch (3.3L and 4.1L respectively) Falcon inline 6 engines.
In the Mk.4 and Mk.5 Cortinas UK finally received a V6 engine as well however they did not just use their own Essex V6 but rather they used both the Essex and the German Köln V6 engines at the same time, Köln engines were cheaper but worse than the Essex engines due to having siamesed exhaust runners.
The 2.0 and 2.3L V6s offered in Mk.4-5 cars were the Köln engine and the 3.0L V6 was the Essex. The 1.6 crossflow kent option was dropped in the Mk.4 and only the 1.3 Kent was available from the Kent family of engines. In the Mk.5 Cortinas the Kent engine was dropped alltogether.
My car has the low 8.2:1 static compression variant of the 1.6 Pinto engine with 68 metric horsepower which was referred as the TL16L which stood for Taunus Line 1.6 Low Compression referring to the engine being used in Taunus and being of the inline type which was a new thing for Ford Germany after not having used the inline engines since 1964 and have been only using the Köln V4 and V6 engines until the OHC inline 4 engine was developed and was brought to market in 1971 with the TC series.
This engine is commonly referred as the „Pinto” engine due to it also being used in the American Ford Pinto however the engine was designed by Ford UK and Germany with the intent of using it both in Europe and USA. It was one of the first engines to use a rubber timing belt and Ford also put the camshaft over the head hence the name OHC.
This inline 4 engine also had 5 main bearings which was a big improvement over the previous generation of the so called „stone engine” inline 4 used in P3, P2 and P1 models which had a flying arm crankshaft with only 3 main bearings. This supports the crankshaft better and causes it to flex less especially at low rpm lugging scenarios. It also allows the crankshaft to handle more torque and rev more thanks to more support provided by 5 main bearings.
As it can be seen below the camshaft did not act directly on the valves riding over a bucket like for example in FIAT Monoalbero sohc engines. Instead the single camshaft acted on rockers which then acted on the valves without having to use buckets. This also makes adjusting the valve clearance easier compared to bucket with shim designs with camshaft directly acting on the bucket, shims and the valves.
The spark plug was located in between the intake and exhaust valves and was on the exhaust manifold side of the engine. According to Ford, the combustion chambers are a penthouse (pentroof) design however in my opinion they are something of a mix between a bathtub and pentroof style of combustion chambers. The valves in the pinto engine are also canted a bit like the 4th generation Big Block Chevy V8 engines. This is known as the „compound angle” of the valves and in the case of the pinto engine it was 30 degrees.
For example a 90 degree valve compound angle occurs in Hemispherical combustion chamber engines where the intake and exhaust valves are completely opposing each other. A 0 degree valve compound angle occurs on for example a 1st generation Small Block Chevy where the intake and exhaust valves lie on a single line and the valves are inline of each other and not opposing each other. The 30 degree compound angle is between these 2 extremes which can be seen below. The seating angle of both of the valves is 7 degrees 30 minutes which was a very small angle but it was a passenger car engine to be daily driven so this is not unusual.

Another great feature of the Pinto engine was that it used crossflow heads meaning the intake and exhaust manifolds were on the opposite sides of the engine as opposed to engines with reverse flow heads which had both intake and exhaust manifolds hanging at the same side of the engine for example the aforementioned FIAT Lampredi Monoalbero engine had reverse flow heads.
These heads are cheaper to produce and provide a good heat source for the intake manifold by being located just above the hot exhaust manifolds which helped with fuel efficiency because carburetors need hot airflow to work efficiently. Note that this should not be confused with power, just for fuel efficiency. However cross flow heads flow better than reverse flow heads so it was a great move by ford to use a cross flow head design meanwhile its rival Opel was still using reverse flow CIH engines all the way into the 1980s.
This is why crossflow headed V engines generally had exhaust crossover passages in their intake manifolds to heat up the intake manifold so that fuel can be atomized better with heat, this is especially important in carburated engines because carburetors actually cool down the intake air after it passes through the carburetors, this is why carburated turbo engines do not need intercoolers unless they are running very high amounts of boost. It is a lot harder to implement reverse flow heads on a V engine so V engines generally kept crossflow heads and used things such as exhaust crossover or heat risers to heat up the intake manifold.
In the case of the Pinto engine an exhaust crossover is not utilized however the intake manifold actually has coolant jackets built inside it. The coolant always circulates around the intake manifold to heat the air in the intake manifold.


Pinto Engine Coolant Flow | Taunus Werkstatthandbuch
Exhaust manifolds on most pinto engines were standard cast gray iron exhaust manifolds. The 1.3 and 1.6 models used a single tract casting meanwhile the 2.0 models used a dual tract casting. However there was one special version, on the 1.6 GT models the exhaust were 4-2-1 style welded tubular steel manifolds with equal length runners which was very unusual for a street oriented and ordinarily priced car like this.

As it was the trend of the time in late 1960s, the pinto engine also had very big cylinder bores with a very short stroke to keep the mean piston speeds down which also reduced the inertia to keep the wear and tear to a minimum in the engine which was also the case in the Köln and Essex family of V engines. Ford’s biggest rival Opel also followed a similar path with their Cam In Head CIH engines by making them very oversquare as well.

Pinto Engine Bore and Stroke Values | A New Range of 4 Cyl In-Line Single O.H.C. Engines by Ford in Europe
On the pinto engines 2 different types of carburetors were used, all 1.3 versions and regular 1.6 versions used the Motorcraft 1V also known as Autolite 1250 single barrel tiny carburetor. The 1.6 GT and all 2.0 engines used Weber DGAV twin barrel spreadbore carburetors set up in sequential fashion. Spreadbore means that the primary barrel of the carburetor is smaller than the secondary barrel as opposed to a squarebore carburetor that will have same diameter primary and secondary. Additionally all of the Weber carburetors came with automatic chokes operated via engine coolant going into the bimetallic spring housing on the side of the carburetor.
The Weber carburetors are what is known as a „Registervergaser” in German and this does not directly translate into English however it is basically same logic of operation as an American 4 barrel carburetor where it has a primary side and secondary side. The primaries open first and the secondaries kick in after throttle is pressed more, so when cruising down the road only the primary side is used which gives good part throttle response and power and also aids a lot with fuel economy but floor the throttle and the secondaries also open so power is not compromised.
These Webers are exactly like that and only difference is the primary only has 1 barrel and secondary also has 1 barrel as opposed to American 4 barrel caburetors that have 2 barrels for primary side and 2 barrels for secondary side.
Since mine is a regular 1.6 version and not the GT, it came with the Autolite 1250 single barrel carburetor, it is a relatively simple carburetor. They came with manual operated chokes as standard however an automatic choke was offered as an extra option and this automatic choke worked exactly same as the coolant operated automatic choke on the Weber.
To set the automatic choke you just press the accelerator pedal once on a cold engine which sets the choke and makes the fast idle cam rest on the highest idle notch of the cam and when you start the car it will start and jump to 2000 rpm fast idle speed. As the coolant heats up it unwinds the bimetallic spring inside the automatic choke housing opening the choke and tapping the gas after it has fully warmed up will move the fast idle cam away from the throttle linkage so it will drop to around 800 rpm regular idle, this can be seen in my video.
Since the pinto engine was crossflow, Ford took another step on top of the coolant jacketed intake manifolds to heat the intake air further for use in cold weather. The air filter housing has a rotatable tip which has 2 positions: summer and winter.
In the winter position the intake of the air filter housing points downward right on top of the exhaust manifold so when the engine is running, it takes hot air from top of the exhaust manifold area where the hot exhaust manifold has heated the air in that area, ensuring that an even hotter air will go into the engine in winter months where weather is cold and needs a bit more heating before going into the combustion chamber.


For use in good weather the tip of the air cleaner can be moved upwards where it faces towards the front so that it can take air directly from the front where its cooler compared to winter position just above the exhaust manifold.


Another interesting thing to note with these engines is that these were the first engines designed with reducing emissions in mind. For example the ports and the combustion chamber were designed with some attention to reducing hydrocarbon emissions in mind which was not the case in previous Ford engines. The biggest step for reducing the emissions was taken in the carburetors.
Both the Autolite and Weber carburetors came with very lean idle mixture settings to reduce hydrocarbon emissions which was also the trend in USA since the late 1960s. Another new feature added to these carburetors was the addition of a deceleration valve.
On a carburated engine when engine braking, there is still fuel being pulled from the carburetor because the throttle valve is still slightly open and the pistons are pulling air from there and fuel from the idle holes located just under the throttle valve.
However when engine braking the speed of the engine is a lot higher than the regular idle speed of the engine which is around 800 rpm however the engine could be at 3000 rpm when engine braking downhill. This means that there is more airflow into the engine and a lot more vacuum under the throttle valve which will pull a lot more fuel from the idle holes compared to a steadly idling engine at 800rpm but the amount of fuel being pulled from the idle holes is a lot higher than the air going into the engine through the slightly open throttle valve.
This means that during engine braking the air fuel mixture becomes overly reach and does not completely burn in the combustion chamber and then partially burns in the exhaust with a backfire sound which releases a lot of hydrocarbon emisions.
When engine braking because there is higher vacuum, the deceleration valve sees this higher vacuum and opens under this higher vacuum. When the deceleration valve opens it provides another path for fuel and air to flow through into the engine. Through this path there are specially created restrictions that provide a good ratio of air fuel mixture and not make it overly rich.
This means that this correct mixture ratio is then passed from deceleration valve into the intake manifold and then into the engine where it burns well and creates much less hydrocarbon emissions.
When idling regularly there is not this much vacuum due to engine being at 800 rpm so the deceleration valve does not open, it only functions at very high vacuum which happens when engine braking. Deceleration valve was also found in the larger Motorcraft 2150 carburetor used by American Ford engines and also in early 70s carburated Porsche 911 models.
In my opinion this was a very stupid idea because a degasser could have been used which cuts off fuel flow to the idle circuit completely when engine braking which means no fuel is being pulled from carburetor to the engine when engine braking and it can achieve same fuel savings as an injected engine when engine braking and it will have no emissions because nothing is being burned.
With the deceleration valve there is still hydrocarbons coming out the exhaust when engine braking, just less of it compared to earlier engines that do not have this valve. With a degasser that could have been reduced to zero as well and degassers existed for a long time for example American tank engines utilized them even back in WW2.

Like most pre 80s cars, there is no radiator overflow tank, whenever the pressure in the cooling system goes above the rated value which is 0.9 bar and the radiator cap opens, it dumps the excess pressure and steam out of the overflow hose which droops directly to the ground and on its way down the steam condenses back into liquid state so a few drops of coolant can be on the ground in very hot days. The TC3 generation received an overflow tank so this was no longer an issue in TC3 generation.
Gearbox and Differential
As stated earlier in the engine section, the entire drivetrain was kept mostly same and this includes the gearbox and the differential. Only a single automatic transmission was used and it was the Ford C3 designed in America. Same gearbox was used in the 60s Taunus models under the name „Taunomatic” but after the merge it was just referred as the Ford C3. It was a torque converter planetary gearbox laid out in simpson style planetary geartrain with 3 forward and 1 reverse speed.

On the manual transmission side there were 3 different variants called as „A”, „B” and „C” gearboxes and they all had 4 forward and 1 reverse speed. The „A” model was only used behind the Kent engines so it only existed on the Cortinas. The „B” model was used behind the 1.6 GT and 2.0 pinto engines and also behind the Köln and Essex V6 engines. The „C” model was used behind the regular 1.3 and 1.6 pinto engines.
The A gearbox was just carried from Ford UK’s earlier models, the B and C gearboxes were mostly similar with the biggest difference being their strength. B gearbox was made quite a bit more stronger than the C gearbox to handle the big torque of the V6 engines. The gearbox in my car is also the C gearbox.
All 3 of these transmissions were toploaders meaning the internals of the transmission go in from the top and not from the side or the bottom like some other transmisions. All of these transmissions also had a single internal rail shifter coming all the way back towards the handbrake area. This provides a much more precise shifter compared to external multi rail style of shift linkages found in American cars of the day.
The shift linkage extending all the way back into the handbrake area meant that the actual shift lever itself was located right next to the driver hence the shift lever did not need to be very long and bent backwards too much like for example in Opel models of the day which had the shift lever itself located right under the dashboard far away from the driver so the shift lever had to be quite long and bent around 60 degrees backwards towards the driver which made a very truck like shifting experience.




As it can be seen in the images above the shifter is a lot longer and bent so much more to reach the driver in the Opels compared to the Ford shifter. The Opel shifter also has 2 external linkages instead of a single internal rail shifter which gave the Ford gearboxes much better precision and shift feel and the overall shifting experience did not feel like a truck like in the Opels.
However i have driven both and the Opel shifter despite being worse also has its own charm to it and i also really liked using it. Most people today would probably hate it but if you like old stuff you would probably like it as well.
The shifter in the Ford is operated like any other 4 speed transmission of the time which is a bit different than modern 6 speeds. The location where the 3rd and 4th gears are on a modern 6 speed, is the same location as the 1st and 2nd gears on a 4 speed shifter, so to shift into first you dont have to bring the shift lever to the left, you just push it directly forward in the middle position. For reverse you push it to the left and forward.
Like all other manual transmissions in the day, the reverse gear was spur gear and was engaged via a sliding mesh action which one of the gears for the reverser assembly was located on the 1-2 shift collar and moving the shift lever into reverse position moved one of the reverse gearsets into mesh with the teeth cut on the 1-2 shift collar and this way engaged reverse gear via a sliding mesh action. This meant that to shift into reverse the car should be completely stopped otherwise it will grind.
The forward gears were all constant mesh with a single cone synchronizer assembly and the gears had big helix angles to keep down the whining sound however compared to modern cars there is a lot less sound deadening in the car so do not expect a completely silent transmission like modern cars, you will still hear some gear whine especially when engine braking.

In total there were 2 different differentials that came in the whole TC series. The „A” differential was used in lower horsepower and torque engines like mine and the „B” differential was used in higher output engines like the 2l Pinto and the Köln V6 engines.

The differential was a standard open type differential with an external mesh planetary gear layout like in basically every other car. Hypoid gears were used which also meant that the pinion was offset from the centerline of the ring gear. This allowed the driveshaft tunnel to take less space inside the interior, be quieter and stronger but also came with the downsides of creating a small amount of extra friction and heat in the differential.

Differential and Axle Cutaway | Taunus Werkstatthandbuch
Another interesting thing about the differential is that there were a lot of different final drive ratios used for all the different types of engines and body styles. For example the sedan version of my car with same engine has 3.89:1 final drive ratio meanwhile my wagon version has 4.11:1 final drive ratio and this was done because the payload capacity of the wagon is higher than the sedan and to give it a bit more tractive effort they put a shorter final drive on the wagon versions using the low output engines.
Chassis and Suspension

Ford in Germany had already switched to unibody construction in the early 1960s and this trend kept continuing to this day. This meant that the TC series also had a unibody frame however the unibody cars back in these days were still not completely like modern unibody cars. At the day most of the unibody cars still heavily relied on the construction on the bottom part of the frame so this car still has very thick frame rails which provide a lot of torsional and bending rigidity to the whole frame. The frame itself did not change during the entire production run of TC series, only the outer body panels changed for facelifting its looks.


Back in the 1970s the safety aspects also started having some improvements, for example most of 70s cars utilized the passenger cell idea where the goal was to use anything ahead or back of the passenger cell as a crumple zone to take the hit and prevent the passenger cell from bein deformed as it can be seen below. However this was in its infancy so they are very crude designs even when compared to 1990s cars.

There were also other safety features which were common on most other 70s cars as well. These include: soft padded steering wheel and dashboard, shock absorbing steering column and adjustable headrests.

The suspension was a great leap forward compared to 1960s fords. Because the McPherson suspension was invented inside Ford, they were very fond of this system in their smaller range of cars for a long time. This included even American models like the Falcon and the Mustang and of couse all German models also used Mcpherson suspension at the front.
In the 1970s with the introduction of the TC series and the Granada, the suspensions became a lot better. Both Granada and TC series has a double wishbone front suspension connected to a subframe that easily drops out from the main frame. Coil springs sat between each wishbone so they were very compact and did not take extra space in the engine bay like some cars that have their coil spring located between the frame and the upper wishbone.


One of the biggest mistakes that ford did with the early TC1 series in 1971 was that they did not put any anti roll bars anywhere which resulted in a lot of bodyroll through the corners and this was one of the biggest criticisms of the TC1 series by motoring journalists. For the 1972 model Ford added anti roll bars both in front and rear, even though the rear axle is solid axle and already provides anti roll capabilities, Ford put an extra anti roll bar to make it roll even less.

This was greatly appreciated by the journalists but in the modern day of course this car still feels very boaty through the corners even with those anti roll bars added because the dampers and springs themselves are still set up very soft. Back in the day every car was very soft so this is not unusual. For example below it can be seen where the TC1 without the anti roll bar upgrade compares against its rival Opel Ascona A.

One thing that helps the Taunus compared to Ascona is that the Taunus was made with a wide track width from the start. Wider the track width, the more natural inertia the car has against rolling. Overall the TC1 was a 70mm wider than the Ascona A, 1700mm versus 1630mm overall width respectively. This wide track width was also heavily marketed by Ford for better handling, more room on the inside and providing a safer driving because of the cars tendency to roll less with a wider track width.


The rear suspension was still a solid axle however it was also greatly improved compared to 1960s Fords. In the 60s the Fords utilized a hotchkiss drive style rear solid axle which used longitudinal multi steel leaf springs both as a spring and as an element to locate the axle which did not gave a very good ride because the leaf flexed a lot and the axle moved a lot laterally and longitudinally.
The direct predecessor of the TC series was the front wheel drive P6 so it did not have hotchkiss drive exactly due to there being no drive at the rear but it was very similar. It had a single I beam axle located by multi steel leaf springs so it had the same shortcomings as a hotchkiss drive, only difference to the hotchkiss drive was that in P6 the rear axle was not driven.

In the TC series this was greatly improved by getting rid of the leaf springs completely and replacing it with a coil spring. Since the leaf spring was gone they needed to locate the rear axle still which was done by using a triangulated 4 link attached to the axle itself.

The 2 lower links are purely there to longitudinally locate the axle and the upper shorter links are connected at an angle which is why it is called as a „triangulated 4 link”. This triangulation allows the upper links to locate the axle both longitudinally and laterally. Thanks to this as well a Watt’s link or a panhard rod was not needed to laterally locate the axle which saved on cost and unsprung weight. On the Opel Ascona for example, there was 4 completely parallel links and a panhard bar was also used to laterally locate the axle.

This triangulated 4 link layout provides great foundation for the axle where it doesnt move around in either axes. This layout was being used all the way into the latest Mustang generation that used a solid axle which was the S197 Mustang which lasted all the way into 2014 and then in 2015 got replaced by the multi link rear suspension S550 generation.
There was one small change in the rear suspension of the TC2 compared to TC1. In the TC1 the rear coil spring was just a constant rate spring however in the TC2 generation it was replaced with a progressive rate coil spring that provided a stiffer spring rate as it compressed beyond a certain point. This idea was also used in the Opel Ascona model’s rear suspension.
The wheel sizes also kept being a small 13″ size however this was also very usual for the time.
Brakes and Steering

The braking system has discs at the front wheels and drums at the rear wheels. One unique thing about the front discs was that it was a fixed style caliper with 2 pistons. Modern cars generally use floating calipers with a single piston, fixed calipers these days are only used in very high performance cars like a Ferrari 296 GTB.
The braking system was fully hydraulic and was assisted via a vacuum brake booster. As it was popular trend at the time the whole TC series also utilized a combination valve in the braking system. In the 60s the braking systems had seperate proportioning valve, metering block and distribution block all located in seperate locations. The combination valves appeared in the early 70s and combined all of these units into a single block which is located on top of the left wheel well on LHD cars which can be seen in the diagram above.
The handbrake is operated via a cable and goes to the rear drum wheels. Pulling the handbrake lever located on the floor forces the shoes to grab the inner part of the drum and this way provide friction. The 60s fords also used a foot operated handbrake which was released by a lever but the 70s fords switched to a conventional hand operated handbrake lever found between the 2 front seats.
The steering in the TC series and in the Granada was a non assisted rack and pinion steering system. The rack in the TC series was a constant ratio rack and had a big gear ratio of 18.7:1 due to the system being non assisted. The steering wheel had a range of 3.5 turns in total from lock to lock so the steering was very slow in this car which was the norm back in those days.

A hydraulic power steering option was also offered and on the Ghia top trim models it was even offered as standard however not many people bought this option on lower trim models and overall the Ghia models logically sold a lot less than the other lower trim versions so this system is not very common.
On my car the steering takes a good amount of effort when stationary and it requires a bit more effort than in an Opel Ascona however in general it was still not on the hardest side of steering systems compared to other cars sold in 70s.
FIAT 131 for example has a bit harder steering than my car but the hardest of them all was the Renault 12 with engine at the nose of the car and a transaxle right behind it which made the front end extremely heavy and made the steering extremely heavy to operate.
Quirks and Oddities about my car
Back in the day it was not a very quirky car however these days since a lot of those designs have disappeared it has a few quirks and oddities about it compared to modern cars. Like the French cars the horn is located on the indicator stalk and you need to push it in to activate the horn.

The windshield washer fluid is also sprayed to the windshield by pressing in the stalk that controls the wiper speed.

Another odd thing is that the parking lights are not wired to the ignition circuit meaning that even if the key is completely removed from the car and ignition is off, the parking lights will stay on because the fuse of the parking lights is connected to the constant electricity coming from the battery. Only the headlights and brights are wired to the ignition circuit.
This is like a double edged sword, it is nice that you can keep the lights on the car even without the key. For example if you parked on the side of a street at night you can leave the lights on so that oncoming traffic can see the car while you are away for a couple of minutes.
However if you forget to shut the lights off from the selector lever and leave the car to go home, you might come back to the car tomorrow with a dead battery because the parking lights stayed on during the entire time you were away.
There is no central locking in this car, every door must be locked and unlocked individually, this was very common back then. Only Mercedes had a pneumatic central locking system but every other car in Europe did not have central locking but from the perspective of modern day this is extremely weird and odd because it takes a considerable amount of time to unlock all 4 of the doors and the trunk.
The heating in this car is also a bit weird for todays standards but it was normal back in 70s. The 2 outer air channels in the dash are only connected to the outside fresh air and even if you put the heater on, they will keep blowing cold because the heater is only connected to the vents that blow to the bottom of the windshield and in the foot area.
There was a Heavy Duty heating option that was available and if you bought that option then the 2 outer vents will also be connected to the heater. In some hot region cars like Spain, there was no heater at all, even the basic heater was an option in those regions and you could just have the ducts always blowing cold air and never hot air.
Below picture shows the Heating and ventilation controls along with the radio. Normally until the TC3 generation there was no casette player in the radios. The radio itself was an option as well, it did not come as standard and the optional radios did not have a casette player.
Originally the radio in my car also did not have a casette player, however the first owner that i bought the car from installed an aftermarket Madison Berlin radio with a casette player. If the car still had its original radio i would have replaced it with a period correct casette player radio like this one because i love listening to casette tapes.

Interior Space and Trunk
The interior is pretty roomy with good legroom in the rear seats and since mine is the turnier version the trunk is very big as well and can become even bigger by folding down the rear seats. In the sedans there are structural members behind the rear seat rests but in the turnier they were removed so the seat can fold down. The front seats are also very comfortable with springs inside them that give a very comfortable ride.

My car is the lowest trim model so it does not have a rev counter, oil pressure and temperature gauge, battery voltage gauge and a clock. I bought the car from first owner who did not drive it much since 80s so it does have original 91670km on it right now.

In the higher trim models the extra gauges can be seen below. Due to the lack of the bottom 4 gauges on my car i actually have an extra storage section in there.

The gauge cluster in the later years of TC2 were changed and since mine is earlier model its the exact same as in TC1. The gauge cluster on my car is also illuminated by green lights like in TC1 however the later TC2 dashboards had an amber lighting color. In all generations the gauge cluster lights can be dimmed via a rheostat.

The rear seats are extremely comfortable and you really sit down into them. It feels like the seat is consuming you because you sit deep down into it. So much that if you look out the window you will realize how low you are sitting especially compared to modern cars.


One option that was chosen by the first owner in this car is the synthetic leather seat option instead of standard fabric seats. They smell very nice but they are very hot in summer and cold in winter so i would have preferred the fabric seats instead.
Compared to modern cars the amount of hard and crappy plastic is very low, even the whole door panels are covered with the same synthetic leather. There is not much plastic in the first place and the ones that are plastic are mostly soft rubbery plastic like the dashboard which is metal coated with soft rubber.
The trunk in my car has a capacity of 962 liters with the rear seats up and with the rear seats down the capacity is 1810 liters which is very big.

With the rear seats folded down there is also a total length of 1.9 meters from the trunk door to where the front seats start so 2 people could easily sleep in here. I put my bicycle in here once and it fit very easily.

There is also some unique features in the spare wheel well section of the trunk. Once you lift off the trunk carpet you are greeted by a flap that you move upwards to expose the spare wheel. The unique thing is that this flap has its own prop to locate the flap in an open position just like the prop found inside the hood that holds the hood up.

Taunus in Germany, Switzerland and Austria
Since the name has been around for so long as brand and model names, they hold a special place in peoples hearts in these regions. The TC series was also extremely popular and lasted 11 years in Europe and even after their production ended they were still very popular cars for a long time. Which sadly ended up in most of them rusting out or going into junkyards and not much is left today.
Due to this, the prices of these cars have gone back up, now on the used market 50 years later they cost about the same as they did brand new back in the day when adjusted for inflation. The car also sometimes played important roles in moves such as in the movie „Bang Boom Bang” from 1999. It did not get the same fame as the Opel Manta in German movie industry however it still had some roles.

Conclusion
I think it is a very good car and still daily driveable if you know how some of these old systems work and know how to adjust them and maintain it regularly. The fuel usage is very bad compared to modern cars along with safety but i take the risk and can afford the fuel so i daily drive my car. Its competitor Opel Ascona was a great car as well and one day i want to own the coupe version of the Ascona, the Manta.
One thing i wish about these cars is if European countries did not tax cars via their engine displacements heavily. Due to this reason neither the Taunus or the Ascona had great engines. Even the 3.0 Essex V6 with 138 hp is not amazing compared to cars in the USA.
This car really deserved a small block Ford Windsor or Cleveland V8s. There is so much space in the engine bay in these cars that they fit without any issues and with plenty of room to spare. The Windsor swap is very common in Argentina where the TC series was also very popular. Sadly the current EU laws make it very hard to swap these V8 engines as well.

