A sable is a small, weasel-like, omnivorous mammal indigenous to forests in the Northern hemisphere. Sadly, they're probably best known for their luscious fur coats more than anything else.
The Ford Motor Company's late and more often than not "meh" middle division made a "Sable" from 1986 through 2003 and in 2008 and 2009. Based on whatever the then current version of Ford's Taurus was, oddly enough, when Ford changed the name of the Taurus to "Five Hundred" from 2004-2007, Mercury followed suit changing the name of their Sable to "Montego".
But wait, there's more. When Ford changed the name of what what was the "Five Hundred" to "Taurus" for 2008 and 2009, the "Montego" became "Sable". Our sea foam, Facebook Marketplace find here is a 1994 Montego. Sorry, Sable.
Seeing how below projections the Sable sold during it's protracted production run, it's somewhat amazing in retrospect Mercury built five different generations of it. Our '94 here part of the second-gen of Sables made between 1992 and 1995 and you wouldn't be alone not seeing the subtle changes in body work between the first two generations. You also wouldn't be alone in calling this a "Taurus". Which it for all intents and purposes it is.
The Mercury Sable underscores the challenges the Ford Motor Company had in defining what a Mercury was. Created in 1938 to compete with General Motors' middle-priced Oldsmobile and Buick brands, on the rarest of occasions, for most of its 74-model years a "Mercury" was no more than a fancified Ford sold alongside Lincolns.
At first a stand-alone division, Ford partnered Mercury with their Lincoln brand after World War II thus creating the Lincoln-Mercury division. If you're of a certain, shall we say, "vintage", the Lincoln-Mercury moniker actually meant something. Or, was supposed to mean something. Again, what that was always fairly murky.
If anything, a "Mercury" portended to be somewhat of an aspirational premium brand being sold fender-to-fender with Ford's luxury brand. Similar to what Chrysler did with their "low-priced" Plymouth and upmarket Chrysler divisions in creating "Chrysler-Plymouth", the tangible difference was, on paper at least, on the rarest of occasion would a customer enter a Chrysler showroom looking to buy a New Yorker and left with a Plymouth Fury. However, it was not uncommon for someone to walk into a Lincoln store fixing to buy a Continental and drive off in a much less expensive equivalent Mercury.
"Lincoln-Mercury" even rolled out a Taurus or Sable based Continental from 1988 through 1994. Although it had a longer-wheelbase and a more formal rear roofline, to those that knew, it was obvious those Continentals were Sables or Taurus' with little more than higher sticker prices.
On the upside, The Ford Motor Company broke their own sedan mold with these cars debuting them in 1985 for model-year 1986. Front-wheel-drive on such a large vehicle as well as four-wheel-independent suspension, rack-and-pinion steering, an available four-speed-overdrive automatic transmission along with an aerodynamic unit-body was truly progressive in its day.
GM girl I am, I much preferred the large-ish GM front-wheel-drivers introduced all but at the same time as the Sable and Taurus rolled out. Those even came in coupe guise whereas the Sable (and Taurus) didn't although the Sable and Taurus were available as wagons; the GM makes and models were not. Meanwhile, auto pundits showered these Fords with glowing reviews while damning the new-fangled Oldsmobile, Buick and Cadillac's with faint praise.
If anything, our green (or is it blue?) Sable with just 136,000-miles on its 29-year-old analog ticker has a fairly reasonable asking price of $2,995. Get it for closer to $2,500 and you have yourself an even better deal. It's a private sale and no doubt would have another two-grand or so tacked on if it was sold at a corner used car lot; we all know those places are more financing shops than used car purveyors. Also, keep in mind that 12- to 18-months ago, this $2,995 Mercury Sable would have had an asking price double that.
Looks like The Pandemic may finally, really be over.
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