The Ford Taurus is a midsize car sold by the Ford Motor Company in North America. Introduced in December 1985 as a 1986 model, Ford sold nearly 7 million Taurus's during its 20 years of production. The Taurus also had a Mercury sibling called the Sable.

The car had a minor update in 1992 and a major redesign in 1996, followed by two minor updates in 2000 and 2004. Between 1992 and 1996, the Taurus was the best-selling car in the United States, but lost the title in 1997. Note that the best-selling vehicle remained the Ford F-150 during this period, and that a number of other vehicles also ranked higher than the Taurus, because the vehicle category defined as a 'car' is not the best-selling type.

In 1985, the Chrysler Corporation issued surveys to predict the success of their upcoming Dodge Dynasty and the redesigned Chrysler New Yorker (both of which wouldn't appear until 1987 for the 1988 model year). According to Chrysler, the surveys predicted that the Taurus and Sable would be hopeless flops, and that the Dynasty and New Yorker would take the sales lead. Not surprisingly, it actually turned out to be the exact opposite, with the Taurus/Sable twins selling very well, while the Dynasty and New Yorker needed rebates right from the start because of slow sales. This is mostly because the Sable/Taurus twins offered sleek, new contempary designs, while the Dynasty and New Yorker used more boxy, conventional designs. Perhaps due to this, the New Yorker and Dynasty were succeeded by new, more radically styled sedans based on Chrysler's new LHS platform in 1993.

In fact, Ford executives believed the same thing. They believed that the Taurus' futuristic design (so futuristic they were used as police cars in the movie Robocop) would turn off potential buyers, and even the Taurus' designer, Jack Telnack, expected it to be a modern day Edsel. (in fact, the name Edsel was proposed, with the advertising tagline "Now we are serious", but this was rejected for obvious reasons). Ford decided that the Taurus was a risk, but they were willing to put it into production - and it paid off. The Taurus saved Ford from bankruptcy, and what started out as an extreme risk would become Ford's best-selling model, with over 1 million sold by 1989.

In 2005, it was announced that Ford would end production of the Taurus in the first quarter of 2006 due to slumping sales. The Taurus is primarily being replaced by the new Ford Fusion, but also by the larger Ford Five Hundred and the Ford Freestyle crossover SUV. In the second half of 2005, Ford stopped public sales of the vehicle, selling the Taurus only to rental fleets.

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