The 1993 Mercury Villager and Nissan Quest were the products of a joint venture between Ford Motor Company and Nissan. The goal was to produce a smaller and more stylish minivan to compete in the traditional minivan market. The vans debuted at the 1992 North American International Auto Show in Detroit. The two minivans differed only cosmetically and shared a Nissan engine. They were built in a Ford plant in Avon Lake, Ohio.
The joint venture for this vehicle was a marriage of convenience between Ford and Nissan. Ford's Aerostar minivan was aging and lagging in sales, and its replacement, the Windstar, was not yet ready for market. Ford had money to build an assembly plant, but lacked vehicle design engineering resources due to other vehicles. Nissan was lacking cash but could contribute vehicle engineering and an engine built at its Smyrna, Tennessee facility. The initial project was code named "VX54" within Ford.
The vehicle was initially very successful, but competitive offerings began to overshadow it in the late 1990s. There were freshenings in 1996 and 1999, and it was discontinued in 2002, ending the Ford and Nissan joint venture. Nissan pursued the development of the 2004 Nissan Quest while Mercury received a version of the 2004 Ford Freestar called the Mercury Monterey.[ Visit the complete Wikipedia entry for Mercury Villager ]
Some related entries: Oldsmobile Cutlass Ciera | Eagle Vista | Ford GT40 | Show car | Maserati Merak | Jaguar E-type | Ford Probe | Chevrolet Lumina APV | Dodge Durango | Chevrolet Tahoe | Bentley T-series This page is based on the copyrighted Wikipedia article Mercury Villager; it is used under the GNU Free Documentation License. You may redistribute it, verbatim or modified, providing that you comply with the terms of the GFDL. | 
