Ford Five Hundred

The Ford Five Hundred is a full-size four-door, five-passenger, front-engine front- or all-wheel drive, high-roof sedan manufactured in Chicago and marketed in North America and Mexico by Ford in a single generation for model years 2005–2007. It was a direct byproduct of Ford's rapid acquisition of numerous brands (e.g., Volvo Cars in 1999); a critical need to leverage those investments; the company's dwindling market share (18.3% in 2004, 17.4% in 2005) and its Way Forward efforts to restructure itself. Notably, with a strong market shift in automotive tastes away from sedans to minivans and SUV/CUVs, Ford made a concerted effort with the Five Hundred to rethink the traditional sedan/wagon formula.

Presented as a single concept drawing at the 2002 New York Auto Show, the Five Hundred was formally presented in production form at the 2004 North American International Auto Show along with its co-developed platform-mates, the Mercury Montego and the crossover Ford Freestyle — the so called Chicago D3's, for the plant where they were manufactured (Chicago Assembly) and the platform they shared, the D3 platform, a revised variant of Volvo's P2 platform.

Ford chose to continue its fourth generation Taurus, critical to the company's fleet sales (to large corporations, small businesses, rental car firms, utility companies, and government agencies) and overlap that production with the Five Hundred, emphasizing the latter's optional all-wheel drive, optional continuously variable transmission, extensive safety features, large interior volume and high H-point seating, the latter marketed as Command View seating.

Internally designated the D258 model, the Five Hundred was styled by George Bucher, Chief Designer, under the direction of Ford Vice President of Design, J Mays who gave the Five Hundred its name, recalling the "500" suffix Ford had used to designate a model's top trim level, as with the Galaxie "500".

The Five Hundred's 203hp engine and conservative styling became points of criticism, and sales fell markedly short of company projections — requiring substantive discounts by its second model year. The Five Hundred was quickly but lightly facelifted and given a new nameplate for model years 2008–2009 — becoming the fifth generation Ford Taurus.

Having entered production on July 12, 2004 and gone on sale in September 2004, the Five Hundred reached 65% of its projected annual sales of 120,000 — or total domestic sales of 241,000 over three model years. The Five Hundred nameplate continued in use outside North America.