DETROIT -- Ford Division will borrow a name from Europe for a new mid-sized sedan for North America.

The sedan, built on a modified Mazda6 platform, will be called the Ford Fusion, Ford spokesman Jon Harmon says.

It will go on sale in late summer 2005. The Fusion will be built in Hermosillo, Mexico.

The company had planned to call it the Futura, but the Pep Boys chain of parts stores uses the name for a line of tires.

In Europe, the Ford Fusion is a small wagon based on the Ford Fiesta car.

The Fusion in North America will fit between the Focus and the Five Hundred, a sedan due in showrooms this fall. The Taurus will be phased out, possibly as early as mid-2005, says an industry source.

The Fusion in North America will be the first of up to 10 Mazda6-based vehicles the company is developing for the Ford, Mercury and Lincoln brands.

A gasoline-electric hybrid version of the Fusion is expected in 2007. Ford's modified Mazda6 platform is called CD3.

Ford Division has decided to start each car name with the letter F.