Ford Motor Co. has quietly started work on a new family of mid-size vehicles, an important product development effort aimed at bolstering the heart of the automaker's Ford and Mercury brand lineups, according to the Detroit News. The line of cars will feature a four-door sedan that would hit Ford and Mercury showrooms in 2005 and eventually replace the Ford Taurus and Mercury Sable as the bread-and-butter passenger cars for the brands, according to Ford officials and future product analysts, the News reported. According to the News, the Taurus is expected to be phased out within a few years, but it may coexist for a short time with the new product. In addition to the sedan, Ford is studying other variations that may include a mid-sized sport wagon, a hatchback and possibly a crossover utility vehicle, analysts say. The lineup is expected to fill a void created when Ford discontinued the Ford Contour and Mercury Mystique several years ago, and help buttress Ford's slice of the U.S. passenger car market, according to the News.
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