Let this be a lesson to Ford: if you have a web page up on your servers, it is LIVE even if you don't have a link published for it. The proof comes courtesy of Blue Oval News, where one of their forum posters played around with URL strings and found the splash pages for the 2008 Ford Taurus and Taurus X (née Freestyle), as well as the 2008 Mercury Sable (formerly Montego).
The materials were posted, and the rest, as they say, is history. The big news, of course, is the summary renaming of the Ford Freestyle, Ford Five-Hundred, and Mercury Montego to the familiar Taurus and Sable monikers. Ford honcho Alan Mulally made it no secret that he thought ditching the old names was a big mistake, and by resurrecting them, he and Ford hope that shoppers see them and welcome them back with open arms. It could work. There are plenty of people who don't follow this stuff with the level of fanaticism we (and you, the readers) do. For them, the idea of a New Taurus or New Sable will be of interest, even though we all know it's simply a matter of nameplate swapping.
It also helps that all three cars are restyled. The Taurus is the Five-Hundred that was rolled out in Detroit. The Taurus X loses the Freestyle name and gains the Edge's face, creating a family look for the crossovers. The Sable's new front end apes that of its little brother, the Mercury Milan. All the cars get the 260-horsepower V6 and some new stuff like Ford Sync will be available across the board.
While the initial reaction may be to dismiss this as an act of desperation, it very nicely sets up 2010, when the entire Ford lineup should be all-new. These are just renamed cars right now, but when they get redesigned, they'll be the all-new Taurus and Sable. They'll have had a couple of years to reconnect with the public and by then, all this naming hubbub is going to be a very distant memory. Especially to consumers.
Follow the
jump for the press releases on all three.
Stay tuned tomorrow for much more on these cars, as the Chi-town crew will have live shots, full galleries, and (hopefully) video.
Originally Posted by Autoblog
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