The Mercury Sable is a range of automobiles manufactured and marketed by the Mercury brand of Ford Motor Company. Introduced on December 26, 1985 as the replacement for the Mercury Marquis, the Sable marked the transition of the mid-size Mercury product range to front-wheel drive. Over its production span, the Sable was Mercury's badge-engineered counterpart to the Ford Taurus, below the Grand Marquis in the Mercury range. From the 1986 to 2005 model years, it was produced as a mid-size four-door sedan and five-door station wagon. For 2006, the Sable was replaced by the full-size Montego and mid-size Milan. It was reintroduced for 2008 as a full-size car, offered as a four-door sedan. Because of declining sales, the Sable was discontinued after the 2009 model year, leaving no Mercury counterpart for the sixth-generation Taurus. The final Sable was produced on May 21, 2009; in total, 2,112,374 Sables were produced during its 1985–2005 production. The Sable nameplate derived from the small Russian mammal of the same name. Background In early 1980, the Mercury Sable began development alongside the Ford Taurus; the $3.5 billion project would become the largest development ever undertaken by Ford at the time. Originally intended to replace its full-size and mid-size rear-wheel drive product lines (Panther and Fox platforms, respectively), the Taurus/Sable were focused toward the mid-size segment in 1981, as the company felt stabilization of gasoline prices justified the continuation of its full-size model lines. The Taurus was to replace the Ford LTD while the Sable replaced the Mercury Marquis. While designed entirely in North America, the Taurus/Sable were designed under a similar approach as the Ford Escort, using an interdisciplinary team approach; each element of the vehicle was designed concurrently, including manufacturing and assembly. Along with input from potential buyers (in stark contrast to the Edsel), Ford used reverse engineering of competitive vehicles as a design input tool. During the development of the Sable, Mercury had become one of the final American brands to adopt front-wheel drive into its vehicle line. In 1982, as a sedan/station wagon version of the Chevrolet Citation, General Motors produced the quartet of the Chevrolet Celebrity/Pontiac 6000/Oldsmobile Cutlass/Buick Century; a year later, Chrysler expanded its K cars into the mid-size segment with the first front-wheel drive Chrysler New Yorker. Coinciding with the 1986 launch of the Sable, General Motors downsized Buick, Oldsmobile, and Pontiac full-size sedans to front-wheel drive, only slightly