Ford Taurus (first generation)

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The first-generation Ford Taurus and Mercury Sable are automobiles produced by Ford as the first of six generations of the Ford Taurus and Mercury Sable. Launched on December 26, 1985, as a 1986 model, the front-wheel-drive Taurus was a very influential design that is credited with saving Ford from bankruptcy, bringing many innovations to the marketplace and starting the trend towards aerodynamic design for the American automakers in the North American market. Ford of Europe had launched the 1980s move to aerodynamic design for the company with the 1982 Ford Sierra. Development for the first-generation Taurus started in the early 1980s to replace the Ford LTD, at the cost of 3 billion dollars, with a team led by the vice president in charge of car development Lewis Veraldi dubbed "Team Taurus." Ford was suffering from a lackluster product line from the late 1970s to the early 1980s, and then-chairman Philip Caldwell staked much of the finances and future of the company on Veraldi and his team's success, giving them unprecedented leeway in developing what would become the Taurus. The Taurus' development employed a strategy of teamwork and customer communication that would prove very influential for the automotive industry, as it consolidated all of Ford's designers, engineers, and marketing staff into a group who worked on the car collectively. The Taurus' development was initially kept very secret by Ford, and not much was revealed about the final Taurus until it was unveiled in 1985. After its release, the Taurus became a strong seller, as over 200,000 would be sold in the 1986 model year, and over a million were sold by 1989. This generation of Taurus garnered additional sales by its two variants: a Mercury version entitled the Sable, and a high-performance version entitled the SHO, and its engine and drivetrain...