Is it possible for something that’s 20 years old to still look futuristic? Yes. Yes it is.
Confession time: I’ve always preferred the Sable over it’s mostly-identical Taurus brother. Alright, the Third-gen looked a bit like a gasping fish, but I’ll leave my colleagues to discuss the pros and cons of that particular generation. The Sable was just different enough to add desirability to an already desirable car. Our featured model is the best representation of these differences. With it’s shiny white paint emphasizing the wraparound windows it makes it look like it wouldn’t be entirely out of place in [STAR WARS REFERENCE REDACTED]
That front is the thing that I like the most. Yes, some will tell you that the light bar makes it look like an oversized vacuum cleaner, but you tend not to think about that when kids point out at the cool car with all the lights in the front or when you realize that unless someone comes the other way with a 1991 Pontiac Grand Prix you have the only car that has one of those. It really shouldn’t work, and yet it does. That light bar alone justifies the asking price, but it becomes an even better deal when you realize that there’s a very good car attached to it. Our featured model is a last year all-kinks-ironed-out 1995 Sable GS (base model in English) finished in Performance White with a Blue Cloth interior. To back the promises its color name makes you have the 140-horsepower Vulcan V6 mated to the A4XN 4-speed automatic. The odometer is showing a believable 75,000 miles.
It’s well equipped too. with discs on all four wheels, electric windows and keyless entry thanks to the good ol’ Ford Keypad. The paint is shiny, the A/C blows cold the lights only look slightly yellowy, there’s no tears on the interior. I’m actually not sure how did this car manage to survive this long looking this well? The seller doesn’t say it’s a little old lady car, but apparently it’s so well kept and so good looking that “This one is parked in our showroom it is that quality! ” No arguments there. He also refers to the car as a “She”
Now, about that interior, as much as the exterior still manages to look fresh in that retro-futuristic way, the interior is very much a ’90s period piece. Everything starting from the color to the fabric selection to the cassette player. But who cares? Blue is a very nice color for an interior, even if red would suit the white paint better, and buttons beat touchscreen interfaces in infotainment systems every day of the week. And besides, if you really must have the latest and greatest in infotainment this is a car where you can actually change the headunit. Try that in a modern Taurus.
As for the price, the gods of economy shine upon Taurus week, as this minter of a Sable is priced at a very reasonable $3,990. For a car that looks so nice that it would almost be a shame to make it do the daily commute. That’s a very good deal don’t you think?
Could be fun to keep this in pristine condition since it is kind of like a 1990s version of a 1958 Chevy Delray and how many of those do you see around
I was thinking the same thing. While you’re not going to get many takers to keep a mid 90’s Sable as a period piece, maybe it will get lucky. It’s certainly in nice enough shape to justify not subjecting to the rigors of the daily commute.
Beautiful looking Mercury Sable. IMHO, this was the last year for the nice looking Ford Taurus/Mercury Sable cars.
Ford Lincoln Mercury Sable?
A personal conveyance named after its inventor, an assassinated ruler, a character from Greco-Roman myth and a small furry mammal.
Lincoln: I would say iconic U.S. president. Kings and dictators rule, presidents lead. Also, I don’t think being assassinated was the most significant fact about him.
Is it possible for something that’s 60 years old to still look futuristic? Yes. Yes it is.
I’ve often wondered if this was the “look” Ford’s/Mercury’s stylists were using for the Sable’s inspiration. Paint the top of this Sable navy blue or black….and you have an American DS.
BTW, Citroen is spinning the DS “brand” off as a boutique or niche sub-brand in Europe.
An interesting point Howard, but I think it’s more a case of the laws of aerodynamics being the same in 1986 as they were in 1956.
My point was that even though the DS does not have a “floating” top, if you modified the roof’s rearmost support so that it had a window in that solid section….well, the Citroen has a similar wraparound rear window treatment.
Yeah. I can see that.
I would seriously consider buying it actually. From the wonky cup holder and change tray to the awesome visibility and crash rating for its day, they were good. I was in a Taurus of the same year when we got t-boned by a larger car going 80mph in 1999, surviving with only minor injuries. The cops said if we’d been driving anything else, she’d have killed us.
The crash worthiness of these cars absolutely deserves applause for Ford. A buddy of mine with a 1995 Taurus a year or two ago clipped the corner of a semi trailer at 70 mph, spun into the center wall, then got hit in the passenger side. He survived with only whiplash.
They aced the IIHS offset test in 1995, despite essentially being a nine-year-old design!
I love the sable nose treatment too, I could take or leave the rest of the car vis a vis Taurus but that is the single coolest lighting detail any car ever had period. To hell with those tacky LED lights everything has now or those gaudy “halos” HID hights have around the projectors, I knew a Sable when I saw it in my mirror, and it looks as good with the lights on as it does when they’re off…… until they yellow.
To me I was never enamored by the “grilleless” look Ford was going for in the 90s, it seemed pointless and boring to just have a body colored filler between the lights, so Mercury filling that portion with light just made that whole gimmick work for me. Plus it reminds me of what I personally find the prettiest car ever made:
Let there be light(s) !
Nice price.
I always really liked the look of this version of Sable, even moreso than the contemporary Taurus. It has the Vulcan, which had great durability going for it and at least enough power it didn’t feel deadly around town.
The Conhead’s Sable
Sable
It wasn’t just the light bar (at least not on my 1992 Sable). The actual headlights are inboard from the outer edge (in the first photo they look a bit yellow), and the far-outboard lights were running lights. When the headlights were on, it all created a solid, all the way across light. Very cool. Turn a corner, and the turn signals and cornering lights would go on. More cool.
Our 1994 Taurus GL, which we still have at a “low” 150,000 miles, is in the same colors: Performance White with a blue interior. Other than it having been hard to find blue floor mats for several years now, it’s a nice color interior, compared to the boring grey that all of our newer cars have had.
It has the Vulcan V6, too. The Vulcans in the 1994s may have had the same horsepower rating as the first ones in 1986, but they were substantially peppier.
This was a great reason to have Mercury. It allowed those people who on the one hand wanted what everyone else wanted, in this case the Taurus, but still unique so that you don’t see 5 of them in every parking lot. It also allowed Ford a way to take a little risk in the styling dept with a lower risk.
I agree. This Sable represents the direction Ford could have taken to salvage Mercury but they just didn’t either have the money or see the value in it.
Can’t really fault them for that, their current model of using the Lincoln brand and the Platinum trim package to serve the near-luxury segment is probably the most cost effective way of doing it.
I took my drivers test in a 1989 Performance White Sable with blue interior. It’s always has a soft spot in my heart.
Open the pod bay doors, please, Hal.
Best point of this one: it doesn’t have the 3.8L engine. Now, whether the A/C is reliable is an open question; our 1993 went through three A/C compressors in the nine years we had it. The power window switches also became unreliable. We never had trouble with the seats, though, and we never had trouble with the transmission or steering. The split bench seat was nearly as comfortable and supportive as bucket seats, too. I miss its cornering lamps, too; hardly anything has cornering lamps these days, and they’re a real help in turns.
Fords of this vintage were notorious for AC issues, it’s one of the reasons why GMs typically made better used car bets.
Actually, quite a few cars still have cornering lights but predominantly German. Off the top of my head, VW Golfs, any Mercedes with the lighting package, BMWs and so forth.
“Performance White” ?
It’s funny when car makers name plain old white paint into something fancy. Honda has “Taffeta White”, for another example. But other than metallic pearl white, do any of them look different than just “white”?
You’ve never seen a white pearl Cadillac? Cadillac (GM) used/still uses? a pearlescent paint that truly made the cars (and SUVs) painted with it look like large pearls. It has a sort of goldish tinge to it.
Tomcat: It’s all about impressions – even back
then. I don’t like it either! Sounds too contrived.
It does seem a bit of an oxymoron. My Crown Victoria is also “performance white” and that is the *only* thing about that car that says performance. Dumb name for a full-line color.
Still makes me wonder why they allowed the hideously face-lifted Tempo to use the roofline of the Sable.
The update on this worked better than the Taurus IMO, but I think it was a step backward after the 86. Different just to be different and not in a good way.
Yes, let’s make our cheap compact look just like our more upscale Mercury Sable, rather than our Taurus. Good work Ford
I can see a first-generation Taurus resemblance there.
Believe it or not the Tempo was a very important car for both Ford and the Taurus program. If the Tempo had flopped then the Taurus might not have come out or perhaps came out looking much different.
Lucky for Ford the Tempo was a sales success topping well over 400,000 in 1984 alone.
Looking at a 1984 Tempo you can see a lot of the look that the later Taurus would have.
The actual test of the aero concept was the 1983 T-bird – this was a bold remake of the boxy bird that didn’t sell from 1980-1982. This key indicator of T-Bird sales was the green light for Taurus; the Aerostar and the Tempo were confirmation of the design philosophy – if the rounded bird did not sell, that would have changed the direction of the Taurus. It is one thing to sell lowly Tempos – it was another to sell an iconic model name with it and to succeed.
Look at a Topaz of the same vintage….they “copied” the roofline of the Lincoln Continental for the 4 door.
And if you look at the roofline of an early 90s Taurus you will see this Tempo really copies the Ford and not the Mercury.
The Taurus/Sable were very attractive, while the FWD Continental and especially the chintzy-looking Topaz were not.
The Tempo’s side windows look like they were sunken in about two inches. There’s the chrome surrounds, then all that black, then the actual glass back there somewhere. I can’t figure out what Ford was trying to pull off with that look, but it sure looked awkward.
I loved the Ford Tempo/Mercury Topaz twins, and I was very disappointed when they were replaced by the hideous looking Ford Contour/Mercury Mystique twins.
Same pose: the Sable
oh this is such a handsome car. for the newer version they must have taken advice
from the people who styled the 61 Dodge ouch!
My dad leased a white 1993 Sable LS with the 3.8 V6 and gray leather interior loaded with the optional passenger airbag and abs. Oddly enough it didn’t come with keyless entry but my dad had the remote keyless entry installed before we brought it home. It’s the only car my family ever leased and the first car my family had with leather. I was 8 when he drove it home from the dealership and that night we went out to dinner and I remember pointing out to my mom and my brother how cool the light bar was as it reflected in the tailgate of the Suburban in front of us. Believe it or not, he was going to either get the sable or a Taurus SHO…the Taurus would’ve been more exciting but it’s really hard to beat that lightbar…that was the last actual car he actually owned as he’s currently on his 4th Tahoe. Maybe things would’ve been different had he gotten that Taurus SHO.
These arent as bad to look at as the next model theres a very tidy 80,000 mile Sable here in pale green lady driver subject to a tranny recall just before it emigrated and still goes fine I’m told. The clear plastic front panel landed here on the VP Holden Commodore the local Fords were just flat sheet metal as were the European variety.
My Mom’s ’93 same color exterior and interior as this
one! ? Reminds me of when she was still healthy and
in this world…. Replaced it in 2002 with a dealer cert.
2001 Metallic Taurus Sport.
Needs some very thin whitewalls to be perfect.
I liked this generation of Sable more than the Taurus, and I thought the Pontiac Grand Prix was somewhat interesting, mostly because of the light bar. The Mercury Villager also had a full-width front light bar.
Were these just for looks, a brief fad? I seem to recall reading that a study showed that the light bar made the car more visible to other drivers and thus reduced accidents, similar to daytime running lights.
Not a fan of this year of Sable. However, if I was offered to me in such good condition for say $2,000 I might go for it. Personally I like to see such nice, low mileage cars preserved rather than neglected or abused.
I thought the light bar was pretty cool in the 80’s–only the 4 door Grand Prix had the light bar, I thought it was a cool way to set the 2 body styles apart.
I was impressed with my sister’s new-in-’87 Taurus…it was the first American that I felt drove similar to my Audi. Within 5 years she went Japanese though, trying to stem the payout of constant repairs.
In ’94 we got my mom a ’91 Sable – that was a good car except the (repeated) warped rotors and a/c leak. Very solid though and we kept it until 2002 or so.
So, this is a very old thread, but I’m going to contribute my piece to it. This car, is the first car I ever experienced in the US. My grandmother and grandfather (Vavo, and Vavo) bought this as their second car here in the US. The identical vehicle. White on the outside, blue on the inside. I remember seeing it for the first time (back in 2003) and thinking “This thing is HUGE!) My Vavo, she used to pick me up from school in it everyday, and I remember knowing that she was outside because I could differentiate it from other cars by the flat spot over the back wheel. I had no idea that it was considered a luxury make. They owned a small store called Aguiar’s Variety, on the corner of Flint and County St, and one day, after my Vavo had parked it to do the opening around 5:30AM, someone came drunk and smashed into it– they sent it to the junkyard which I JUST learned today! The Sable’s replacement was a Maroon and shiny Pontiac Grand Prix, which they didn’t own for more than 24 hours before my Grandmother said that she hated the color, and it was too tacky. The next day, the OFFICIAL Sable replacement came in– a 2000 Toyota Camry in beige, with gold emblems on it, delivered to the house with only 8 miles on it! The previous owner had bought it new, and died the same week. They drove that car for over 20 years. My grandmother loved it, but on Christmas day about 8 years ago, since we live in new england, the years of salt and corrosion did a number on the engine supports, and the engine literally fell back onto itself.. ripping the entire drivetrain out along with it. My grandmother was devastated. Family bought them a brandyyy new Corolla, she hated it. She said it was too small, and too slow. She passed away this year a week from my birthday in January, but forever in her 40’s in my head, is her, waiting outside of my school in her White and blue Mercury Sable.