(first posted 7/17/2017) Taking a look back, it’s truly quite interesting how the minivan segment in North America began, grew, evolved, and declined, even if the vehicles themselves aren’t all that interesting to most people. For the better part of the minivan’s existence in the 20th century, Chrysler ruled the minivan game, despite selling what could arguably be described as the most basic, humblest-origins offering.
Based on the love-it-but-mostly-hate-it K-car, the first and second generation Chrysler minivans wowed buyers with their numerous interior configurations, high level of space efficiency, and enough trim and option packages to suit every wallet and wish list. Minor updates and just one major refresh kept these K-based Chryslers the industry benchmark for twelve years, even in their final 1995 season. The fully-redesigned third generation that followed leapfrogged Chrysler even further ahead of competitors that were beginning to close in.
GM and Ford struck back early on in the mid-1980s with their rear-wheel drive Chevrolet Astro/GMC Safari and Ford Aerostar offerings, which were larger and more powerful — the key to success in America, right? Unfortunately in this case, the answer was an astounding “no”. Americans liked the packaging of Chrysler’s minivans, no matter how primitive their K-car roots were. Back to the drawing boards for GM and Ford.
Early-1990s space age designs in the form of Toyota’s egg-shaped Previa and GM’s second attempt with its “Dustbuster” U-bodies also flopped, barely making a dent in Chrysler’s enormous market share.
Ford’s Taurus-based Windstar, the closest copy of Chrysler’s formula by another automaker yet, was still under development and a few years away from being ready. Yet the number two American automaker found a way to sell a more car-like, front-wheel drive minivan two years earlier, interestingly by way of a joint-venture with Japanese automaker, Nissan.
While the design and powertrain came from Nissan, Ford’s contribution came in the form of most interior switchgear and assembling both minivans at its Ohio Assembly plant in Avon, OH. Styling changes to the Mercury’s Villager, which took its name from the brand’s midsize station wagon of yesteryear, consisted of different bumpers, lower bodyside moldings, taillight clusters, and the lightbar grille similar to other Mercurys of the era. A mid-cycle refresh for 1996 brought with it new front and rear fascias, the front highlighted by a more traditional chrome grille.
When the Villager hit the market in mid-1992 as a 1993 model, it received a warm and optimistic welcome, with some critics even being so confident in claiming that the Chrysler minivans had at last, finally met their match. Indeed, the Villager had its many strengths, chiefly its artful styling, highly configurable seating arrangements (14 total), ride and handling characteristics, and a few thoughtful convenience features such as rear HVAC controls, rear headphone jacks, and table top-like second row seat backs with cupholders when folded.
Unfortunately, these aspects didn’t make the Villager perfect, and a several key deficiencies severely hampered the vehicle’s appeal and overall success. Above all, it came down to size and price. Riding on a near identical 112.3-inch wheelbase to the short-wheelbase Chryslers (112.2), the Villager was nearly a foot longer externally, placing it within three inches of the long-wheelbase Chryslers. In spite of this, the Villager offered three inches less legroom than the short-wheelbase Chryslers, and only marginally more cargo capacity, despite its added heft.
Furthermore, the Villager didn’t make up for this with its price tag. Its entry-level GS trim started at nearly $3,000 more than a base Voyager or Caravan, and its top LS trim was over $1,000 more than all but the Voyager’s and Caravan’s top trims with added all-wheel drive, something not available on the Villager.
Adding insult to injury was the fact that the Villager’s third row bench could not be removed, unlike most competitors. It only folded and slid up to store behind the front seats. Other minor demerits included a somewhat cumbersome control layout, and the lack of a driver’s side airbag until 1994 and a passenger’s side front airbag until 1996.
The Villager was an all-around decent effort, but when it came to what minivan buyers wanted most, the Villager came up short. In years when Chrysler was selling well upwards of over 100,000 and in some years even 200,000 units each of the Plymouth Voyager and Dodge Caravan, with a handful more of Chrysler Town & Countrys, Mercury Villager sales in the U.S. never surpassed 77,000.
By this featured car’s 1998 model year, the final of the first generation, Mercury sold less than 40,000 Villagers. Nissan sold even fewer Quests during this period. Despite a seemingly easy formula to replicate, the art and science of minivan building in the latter part of the 20th century proved rather difficult for Chrysler’s competitors, and the Mercury Villager was no exception.
Photographed: Hingham, MA – December 2016
Related Reading:
1993 Chevrolet Astro – How Hard Can It Be To Make A Minivan (Part 1)
1995 Ford Aerostar – How Hard Can It Be To Make A Minivan (Part 2)
1990 Oldsmobile Silhouette – How Hard Can It Be To Make A Minivan (Part 3)
1995 Honda Odyssey EX – How Hard Can It Be To Make A Minivan (Part 4)
Interesting look at an obscure player from the bygone minivan world. Watching competitors respond to Chrysler in the ’80s and ’90s was bit like watching the Keystone Kops–blunder after blunder, seemingly with no clue as to the core competencies that made the K-based vans so successful. No one was able to match Chrysler’s pragmatic space utilization (heavy RWD bodies? Strange shapes?), and I hadn’t realized how badly the Villager/Quest missed on this as well. The other Chrysler triumph during this era was the early adoption of airbags, which rapidly became central to selling a “safe” family vehicle–Ford/Nissan goofed by not having that feature at launch for MY93.
In hindsight, I often wonder if there was more than a big of corporate hubris, the competitors absolutely determined not to copy the K-car minivan. They were going to compete on their own terms, not just copy the design of a carmaker who had almost gone belly up less than a half a decade earlier.
And just because Chrysler got it right on the first try . . . . . well, what does that count for?
I continue to believe it was like this: Chrysler had been so screwed up for so long that they couldn’t possibly have done something so brilliant. They must have accidentally bumped up against the winning formula in the dark and cheaped their way through to something that happened to sell. But for a *real* car company, the *real* formula for a winning minivan was something a little different.
Little did they realize that Chrysler had indeed figured it out, something that they one by one came to terms with. But it sure took awhile.
Ahh, JP: dead on. In the book, “Behind The Wheel” about Chrysler’s first brush with death, a Big Two exec was quoted as GM and Ford never considered Chrysler as a serious competitor.
Seems that thinking may well have applied to their take on Chrysler’s success with the minivan.
Ford and GM had “not invented here” syndrome and dismissed Lee I’s wonder vans.
GM fans I knew back then called them ugly and said “will never replace station wagons”.
Windstar was whipped up quick and had many corners cut. Bad head gaskets, HVAC blend doors failing, etc.
Remember too that Windstar was developed during the “World Class Timing” era, during which Ford decreed that new car development should take no more than four years. The ultimate effect of that was that every corner that needed to be cut to make timing deadlines was cut and every dollar that needed to be thrown away to make timing deadlines was wasted.
Hence, Windstar (and the 3rd generation bubble Taurus).
Much of the concept and product planning for the minivan was originally done at Ford by guys who later followed Iacocca to Chrysler. Ford killed it during development for not having sufficient sales potential.
I thought this was a good effort that should have sold better than it did. I think the seating configuration (which did not allow for a switch to full cargo mode) may have been the big problem. Also they seemed to give a little less room for a little more money.
Also I never felt like these got the level of promotion that Ford-branded vans got.
An excellent choice for this series.
The inability to gut a minivan from seating to full cargo is another one of those “what are they thinking?” moments.
And it’s not just back then. As a very happy second generation 2008 Kia Sedona owner (who’s van hasn’t had the middle seats in place since the day we brought it home, and the rear seats are up only rarely), you can imagine my disappointment to ride in the third generation Sedona, absolutely love the vehicle, then discover that the center console and middle seats are mounted permanenty.
So much for reenactment hauling (which takes up everything behind the front seats), or camping at the racetrack. Looks like my replacement van will either be a 2014 Sedona, or something from FCA.
You are dead on about the seats. My Sedona is used mostly for passengers but I have used it often enough for cargo that any minivan that will not let go of all of its seats is a non-starter for me. Have none of these engineers had to move a kid into or home from college?
I think Kia made a big blunder here. Although I am not completely on board with the looks of the new one, it is a very nice vehicle in every way – except for the way you have pointed out.
Ford was just desperate for something to fill the gap between the Aerostar and Windstar, so they cut a deal with Nissan. I’ve never been a fan of Nissan products and felt that, unlike their Japanese competitors, Nissan quality was never all that much better than the domestics.
I think it also suffered somewhat from lack of power. It was more powerful than a four-cylinder Chrysler van and at least comparable with the 3-liter Mitsubishi V-6, but the Mopar vans could have 3.3- and 3.8-liter with more grunt. The VG30E and four-speed auto were reliable, but by mid-90s standards, the Villager/Quest was kind of underpowered for hauling duties — as I recall, 0-60 was something over 13 seconds even unladen.
The hidden gem in these minivans was the drivetrain.
Even in the slightly detuned, non-interference form used in the Villager and Quest, the Nissan VG-series V6 is one of my favorite engines of the ’90s. A version of the same engine was also used in the 300ZX and the Maxima. The two I owned (in Maximas) were an almost perfect blend of power, fuel economy and refinement – I’ve yet to experience another engine as smooth and quiet while idling. Unfortunately, the later 3.3 liter version (used from ’99 onward) was not nearly as reliable.
I’m curious, how would you say the next-gen VQ30 compare to the VG30 in terms of refinement? I really liked the VQ in my ’00 Maxima. Turbine smooth, I’d argue it may have even edged out the 1MZ in my Lexus ES300 in terms of smoothness when revved.
I learned to drive on both, the 00 Quest had the VG33E and my Dad’s 99 Maxima had the VQ30DE. Both were very smooth V6s, but the VQ was much more eager to rev and had a flatter torque curve, the VG definitely felt a generation behind.
I have to agree… It was the engine and transmission that would have swayed me to buy the villager/quest. By this time many ppl knew the weakness of Chrysler vans was the transmission… And the engine. The mitsu 3.0 was a known oil burner.
We got our 93 from my Grandpa, who used it for trips into the Rocky Mountains, packed with bikes in back, he bought it in part because it was the same engine being used in the 4DSC Maximas, he certainly pitched it to us that way when he was looking to trade up to something bigger with better storage.
Our later quest had the 3.3 but we had no issues with the engine except for a clogged fuel injector. It and the transmission were basically the only good parts left on it by the time my Mom was done thrashing it.
Unfortunately these crankshafts had a nasty habit of snapping off the front-at the vibration damper.. I’ve never known another crankshaft to snap like that, but this was a common problem until 95 when they beefed up the crank.
I always thought the 2 biggest demerits against the Villager/Quest were the inability to remove the rear seat and the lack of an extended/Grand Villager sort of model. I was not aware of the pricing versus value proposition compared to Chrysler’s van, or even the size and space utilization “problem”.
To see these passing on the street, they struck me as being big for a 5 seat van and very cramped for a 7 or 8 seat van. I also imagine the powertrain made the Villager/Quest a bit more expensive than the Chrysler competition.
I still see a fair number of Villagers on the road, but I thought these had “fragile” transmissions?
And I agree, the amount of money spent marketing the Villager AND Quest was tiny compared to the money spent marketing the Chrysler minivans.
Working at a Nissan dealer back in 1995 I sold quite a few of these Quest vans, and customers absolutely loved them. They were a little short on room, but customers that had issues with their Ford or Chrysler minivan trade-ins looked forward to the Nissan powertrain which was, for the most part, rock solid in these. I had a large dry cleaning company order 5 of them, all white, in the most basic trim as possible, for their pick-up and delivery service. They were going to remove all the seats but the drivers and use them as utility vehicles. IIRC they put well over 200k miles on all of them, and had very little if any issues at all with them. I haven’t seen many on the road as of late, but when you did they always looked tired and totally used up.
These are decidedly over-represented in my neck of the woods, and I suspect that is due to their lack of major issues, especially in the powertrain. And it’s more of the gen1 version that I see.
I now have 178000 miles on my second Villager (gen 2). My gen 1 went to 96000 miles. The Nissan drivetrain was the compelling point for me. The seating arrangement has suited my needs.
I don’t see too many of these in Northeast Ohio any more, and this is where they were made. The few I do see are badly rusted. These seem to be more susceptible to tinworm than their Chrysler or or GM competitors.
I actually forgot about the anonymous mid cycle facelift these had, in my head I thought the lightbar was eliminated with the bloated looking second generation.
As I have mentioned in the past, my family had both generations(second being a straight up Nissan Quest), but the Villager was solid and nice enough to prompt my Dad to make the stupid, pointless and uninformed decision(he’s said it himself btw) to “trade up” to the new model, which had every single one of the aeformentioned drawbacks the first gen had, but with significantly worse build quality. But the 93 was nice. All of my aunts/uncles bought the Chrysler offerings to shuttle around my cousins and, at least from my kid perspective, I liked our Villager much more, and it served our needs perfectly, even if we now all agree(Mom, Dad, Me) that we were too small of a family to keep up with the minivan fad – we ALWAYS had the middle row removed. It was kept in the right side of the garage under a tarp.
Ours being a 93 had the lightbar, which I loved/love, was a deep metallic green, which I also liked, it did NOT heave the rear HVAC controls(it had *something* in it’s place but I don’t remember what), which was irritating on long trips, since my Dad’s comfortable temperature is where I start shivering, and it had only the one sliding door, which is all we needed, and I preferred because it felt cozier . Later on these got dual sliding doors(like our 2000) but the dumb part about the design is if you had the middle row installed(as most other family’s did) you could only access the rear row from the passenger side anyway. Drivetrain was bulletproof, but ultimately my Dad wanted to get rid of it because he expected the manifold gasket to fail. I think he was making a mountain out of a molehill in hindsight, but who was I to question that diagnosis when I was 11 or 12? I just remember my Mom being none to pleased, because she had merely tolerated the mommymobile thing with the 93, getting another, in boring silver no less, didn’t go over well.
Around here you still see a fair amount of these, almost always used by tradesmen or cleaning crews. Most likely due to that drivetrain.
I’ve had 2 of these, once a Villager, then a Quest. I’ve had many minivans over the years (and wagons of course). To me the strengths of this minivan is it’s driving characteristics, and the styling. I remember when these were new, they were the cat’s pyjamas.
I bought mine when they were old. Unfortunately each had a major mechanical issue. The Villager had a plugged cat (2 apparently) and the cost was too much for me at the time. The Quest had a tranny issue. And yes, that centre seat not coming out was a pain.
The center seat can come out, but the rear one can’t, it could only be slid forward and backward
My Dad’s Villager spent most of its life with the middle seat stashed in the garage and the rear seat slid forward. When we donated it to a charity after he died, we threw the seat into the van before it was picked up. Didn’t bother bolting it down. We found out that it failed smog test and was sold for scrap/salvage, anyway. By then both sun visors had fallen apart and the headlight mounts had cracked, and the transmission was doing weird stuff. But the legendary Nissan 3 liter engine remained strong and willing, even if (or because it was) smoggy.
These vans have been hugely popular with working class for construction, painting, and gardening workers. Nissan powertrain and nimble size are major pluses. Lately, age and tin worm are getting them to get scrapped/parted out, thus seeing less of them.
Was kind of interesting seeing old Villager Nauticas with ladders on top and filled with tools.
The 2008-10 era Mopar minivans have now started to enter ‘working van’ market.
Spot on. Chicago, in particular, still has a high concentration of “beater status” stuffed to the gills with random stuff Villagers and Quests running around as if time forgot them, long after they have disappeared from most everywhere else.
The non removable rear seat was a calculated decision. Fact is very few people actually remove all the seats from their minivan to use it as a cargo hauler and removing the rear bench seats in minivans was not something that was easy to do. So the vast majority of them never had that row removed and I’m betting their research had shown that. Having it fold up and slide forward to maximize the cargo area w/o needing to remove it was not a bad idea, though certainly not as convenient as one that will fold into the floor.
At the time Ford was spending money to differentiate Mercury from Ford, The Grand Marquis and Sable only shared the front doors and windshield with their respective Ford cousins on the outside and inside there were many parts that were unique to Mercury. Base prices at Mercury were still higher than at the Ford store. So it really isn’t that surprising that the Villager came from a joint venture instead of being a rebadge and that it was among the most expensive vehicles in the segment. It was not meant for the bottom feeders that were focused on low price and versatility, it was focused on buyers that needed more seats and wanted to drive a nicer minivan.
When discussing sales numbers those of the Aerostar, Astro, Caravan and Voyager aren’t really relevant. It was not aimed at the broader market, it was billed as a “luxury minivan”, compared to the other luxury Minivan the Town and Country it held its own in the early years. The bigger downfall in my opinion was the fact that the switch to the SUV as the standard family hauler was already under way and it was those who had a little more in their budget that led the way.
Giving Mercury a product not shared with Ford must’ve seemed a great idea. But it looks like the premium pricing of these versus an equivalent Chrysler product severely impacted sales. Guess Ford miscalculated how much the premium ‘Mercury’ label was worth.
Chrysler set the size standard with its LWB vans, and this was too small and therefore a miss. It looked petite next to a Mopar mini. I”m sure the fact that it was branded a Mercury caused a lack of interest among many, and those that were okay with buying a Mercury were not likely okay with this being a Nissan at heart.
I can add to the anecdotes that these were pretty solid vans for those willing to buy. A family member had access to one for company use, the thing ran so long it outlasted the company.
Thanks for bringing this series back! I was born in 1997, so as a young child I was surrounded by minivans including Villagers and Quests along with the others. It is kind of amazing how quickly minivan sales dropped off- I had to look up whether the Quest is still in production, and found out it was quietly discontinued last year. I am hoping for some articles about more recent minivans as well. 🙂
I think minivan sales dropped off so dramatically because people didn’t want to drive vehicles so associated with being parents, while people buy SUVs for a wider variety of reasons, not just for carrying children.
Yeah, it seems like what started as, “Hey, these look so practical! I want one!” went to, “Geez, these look so practical. Don’t you have something else?”.
I had a 1993 dark green which I used as a delivery van. Removed the central seat and she was ready for work. I just loved that little van, I could load it with the same amount of stuff I used to load a v6 Ford Ranger I had before, the difference was the load was protected from rain/snow and from the bad guys.
The family who owned it before used to eat Wendy’s inside the van on a daily basis and never bothered to clean it up. My wife named the car “smelly”.
It took a lot of work to get it clean.
The ’93 Villager was our first minivan. It was clearly less roomy than the extended Chryslers, but adequate for our four child/one retriever family (and scads roomier than our Taurus wagon had been). The Chryslers at the time were troublesome, cheap-feeling, and sloppy driving. The Toyota Previa was interesting but ultimately a bit too weird. When the Villager/Quest came out it had a far more premium feel and the potential of much better reliability. The non-removable rear seat was never an issue for us. I do recall insisting the dealer replace the standard General tires before delivery… we’d had three fail on our Taurus wagon and wanted no part of General again. When we traded the car in at 80,000 miles the Michelins still had about half their tread depth… still amazes me. We replaced the car with a Windstar in 1996, followed by a series of Odysseys (which was a fully-realized minivan). Now the kids are on their own and we live in the mountain of CO, so we’re SUV/CUV folks with two retrievers. Minivans remain the nearly perfect family vehicle, despite having fallen out of style with the self-proclaimed “stylish.”
I will echo this sentiment. I test drove a 3.3L Chrysler, and Pontiac Transport 3.8L. The Chryco and Poncho were both quicker, however the Merc/Nissan was much more refined and comfortable to drive. Still have a soft spot for a Nautica, and we still use the gifted yellow Nautica leather travel bag. A distinctive luxury minivan.
I do still see the Villager/Quest models around here in Great Lakes country; maybe the drivetrains do indeed hold up the longest.
I enjoyed reading this today and then remembered William Stopford’s entry re V/Q from a few years ago—recommended to all:
https://www.curbsideclassic.com/curbside-classics/the-nissan-quest-and-mercury-villager-official-car-of-washington-heights/
Proving their reputation as being used as work vans I ran across a Nautica with 4 ladders strapped to the top and then a Quest with a piece of plywood covering the side door window area, the rear seats missing and various tools in the back.
Now in 2021, Quest/Villagers have succumbed to age, and the favorite ‘used work van’ is either Sienna or Dodge/Chrysler. I have seen one late model 2010-ish Quest with ladders, but not as common as the featured generation in this post.
Who buys minivans? Growing families buy minivans. What generation bought most of the minivans? Boomers. When did Boomer stop having kids? Around the end of the Millenium, about 25 years ago. When did minivan sales start sliding? Around the end of the Millenium, about 25 years ago. When did the Villager show up? At the end of the Millenium, about 25 years ago. Whatever was saved by working with Nissan on the Villager/Quest – got lost in the loss of the demand for minivans.
So – at the time – the Boomers were the largest generation. They had kids. Unlike today, they had more than 1.7 kids. Twenty five years later, the first generation of minivan kids are now having 1.7 kids – below replacement rate. While they are now the largest generation, since the Boomers are now dying off, but they aren’t having as many kids. And if they are having more than 2 kids, they either choose a minivan – an excellent value – or the buy a CUV because they don’t want to drive a parentmobile. Yet, the market for 3+ families who choose a minivan are a much smaller percentage of the market today.
The rise and fall of the minivan is also the rise and fall of the Boomer parenting era. Boomers are now grandparents or have died. There will not be another minivan boom like the one seen during the last 25 years of the 20th century.
Well I am at the tail end of the 1st third of the baby boomer generation and still alive and have no grandchildren since my son is 14 now. Maybe I’ll see a grandchild when I am 86, maybe…
My lasting memory of these, was as serious rusters.