With the birth of our twin daughters in July of 1996, another upgrade to the fleet was needed. We had replaced our Camry wagon with a first gen Subaru Legacy Outback 6 months earlier, but with both of us working and taking turns hauling kids around, we needed something a bit more flexible and roomy than the Subaru.
We said goodbye to our Mazda B2600i and traded it for a new 1996 Mercury Village GS. Our new minivan would be charged with primary day care duty along with occasional road trips to the Wisconsin Dells and similar vacation spots.
But before we get started with today’s COAL, a word from our sponsors – Geography and Coincidence. I’m writing this from a Starbucks near the Ford Rawsonville Plant, just east of Ann Arbor, MI. Rawsonville is the home of one of Ford’s component plants. As I drove by this morning, I saw the lots surrounding the plant filled with F150 trucks, presumably waiting for chips or batteries or something. My wife and I have been on the road for almost 6 weeks towing our 16′ Scamp with a 2018 F150. We started our trip in St Paul, former home of a Ford Ranger production plant. Along the way we picked up my older brother and his wife, both formerly of Avon Lake, OH, former home of the Villager/Quest twins. The F150 we’re driving will be a future COAL.
Now back to our regular programming. The Villager/Quest twins were a joint venture project initiated by Ford and Nissan in the late 1980s to come up with a competitive minivan to the dominating Chrysler products. Designed around the current Nissan Maxima chassis and VG30E engine along with their 4 speed automatic transmission, the plan was to out-minivan the Chrysler. Unfortunately, Chrysler had other plans. Nissan provided most of the exterior design in addition to the mechanicals while Ford contributed interior fitments and switchgear. The result was a very attractive design, perhaps the best looking of that generation of minivan.
Interesting (and perplexing to me) is that Ford was designing the Windstar at the same time using completely different underpinnings. Why not follow the Taurus/Sable strategy and just slap a light bar on the front of the Windstar and call it good enough? Maybe this was Ford just throwing everything at the minivan wall to see what would stick.
Oh well, on with our story. Our GS was equipped with the LS alloy wheels, a big improvement over the standard plastic wheel covers that came with the GS.
The rear 3/4 view was just about perfect with a very slight downward rake to the front. The integration of the hatch, windows and taillights combined with the recessed door handles provided a sporty enough look that you could pretend (in your mind’s eye anyway) that you were driving one of those fancy European sport wagons, sort of.
Our 1996 benefitted from a mid-model refresh that removed that awful Sable-esque lightbar, greatly improving the front end look. Our solid red Villager featured a gray cloth interior that almost felt sprayed on to the foam foundations. While not uncomfortable, the seats didn’t really conform to your body as you might expect. It was more like sitting on bleachers or something.
Our GS came with a middle bench seat as opposed to the optional captains chairs available in LS trim. While the middle bench was removable with some effort, the rear bench was more or less permanent, so cargo hauling was limited. Both seats did fold flat to form a nice level platform however, so not all was lost. As noted, the Villager/Quest twins offered just a passenger side sliding door, a major design flaw you noticed once you started to load up the car seats everyday.
The Villager was my primary vehicle throughout the 4 years I had it. I had no mechanical issues over those four years and no real complaints, except that lack of a driver’s side sliding door. Midway through ownership, my wife and I separated and the minivan became my only ride. I was doing daily daycare pick up at this time, a 25 mile drive from work, followed by a drop off at their mother’s house and then a 20 mile drive home. So my last couple of years of ownership became a sort of blur.
I did have one accident. A woman distracted by something made a left turn in front of me. I slammed on the brakes and saw to my horror that I was about to hit her amidships where a child was strapped into a car seat. I managed to slow enough that no airbags were deployed and I jumped out to check on the kid. Fortunately there were no injuries, but I’ll never forget the look on the mom’s face as I pulled open the rear car door to check her kid. The Villager sustained minor injuries to the bumper and headlights. Insurance covered everything and I was soon back on the road.
Not long after the accident, a relationship I was in began to turn serious. She had a couple of kids of her own, about the same age as mine and the minivan became essential for getting all seven of us around. While I had no complaints about the Villager, she started to hint that perhaps we might want to start looking for something a bit more modern, perhaps with dual sliding doors even. So in 2000 I started looking for my next minivan. Something even sportier, if such a thing even existed in minivans.
I am guessing a Mazda MPV, or Odyssey followed?
Yeah, you guessed it. The 2nd gen MPV started my love hate with Mazda. There was no excuse for their ongoing rust issues nor my continued purchase of their product.
I lived through the heyday of the minivan and in my midwestern world these were never among the most popular, but they were always there in modest numbers. I knew two people who owned one – both liked them and kept them for several years. I think the only rap on them was that they were on the small side in the era where the “Grand” version of competitors became the norm.
That 4th door was an amazing thing. Before the 1996 Chrysler minivans made it available (optional at first) nobody really hated on the 3 door configuration. But once that 4th door was offered as a possibility, it absolutely took over. We owned a big van in that period and the 4th door was never offered. To this day my 20-something children still tend to head towards the passenger side of a vehicle to get into it. 🙂
My folks had one of these in the mid-90s in the ubiquitous hunter green/gold trim. It was a great looking van and they liked it – to a point. My recollection matches yours – you sat on top of the seats rather than in them. Also, the butterfly valve in the throttle body stuck in the closed position constantly. You can imagine how dangerous that could be – you had to mash the throttle to get it open. Better not be too close to the person in front of you at a stoplight. Neither the dealer nor a can of WD40 could fix it. Other than that it developed some sort of flaw around 90,000 miles that I can’t remember, but it was costly enough that my Dad traded it on Dodge Caravan.
Around here these had an amazingly long second life as work vans. I guess the bones were good as they might have been rusted out but the drivetrains would keep going and going.
My sister had a Villager and my brother had a Windstar. The Villager was by far the better vehicle. She had years and years of trouble free driving. My brothers Windstar just immediately starting breaking down and falling apart. He soon traded it on a Honda Odyssey. My sister eventually traded the Villager in on an Odyssey as well, but only after putting 300K+ miles on that Villager. You couldn’t ask for better. Toyota and Honda made the best minivans in the 2000’s. Chrysler could never match the reliability. Now “Minivan” is a dirty word, almost as bad “station wagon”. Everyone wants SUV’s now. But the low step in height and big giant box for hauling anything is really the best vehicle for most families with multiple kids.
I’m wondering what comes after SUV/CUV all the things. As with all automotive periods it will likely come to an end. It feels like we’re already approaching the hatchback stage with the number of tweener crossovers that are barely bigger than hatchbacks of yore.
I have one word for you. Trunks.
“Toyota and Honda made the best minivans in the 2000’s. Chrysler could never match the reliability. ”
I am not sure I would put Honda in that category. Their sliding door Odyssey (that ran from 99-04, IIRC) had a lot of good to it but was plagued by weak and unfixable transmissions. The Chryslers had their issues, but they also were a more pleasant package with a tighter structure. They had weak transmissions too, but any shop could rebuild one for reasonable money. Honda forums of that generation and the next had a lot of unhappy members.
Here in New England, or greater Boston at least, the 2nd gen Honda Odyssey was the suburban mom’s vehicle of choice. Earlier in the 90s the Chrysler minivans dominated, but once that 2nd generation Odyssey launched, it left everything else in the dust. This probably has/had a lot to do with the general Honda dominance in the area (and the fact that Subaru/Volvo/BMW didn’t make proper minivans).
I recall the pickup line at most (including my kids’) elementary schools around 2008 looking like a Honda dealership. This despite the awful traction in snow and funky rear brake issues that were seldom addressed by warranty. Or so most moms told me. The vast majority of these vans were leased and traded in for a new one every 2 or 3 years.
I virtually never saw Ford, Nissan or Mazda minivans in the wild.
I only know one person who toted tots in a Windstar and their experience (if only anecdotal) suggests you chose the Villager/Quest model wisely. That Ford was traded in for a Honda Odyssey, and no qualms from them on that.
A friend’s wife had a 1995 Villager for a few years in the mid 2000’s. It was the common burgundy and metallic beige color that many of them were, and had the spifty light bar Mercury vehicles were known for in that era, sadly dropped for 1996. It was a solid vehicle for her, and I mainly only remember it for the light bar… because of course I do. Light-up (but legal) frippery draws me like a bug to a zapper, and it was a surefire way to pick out a Mercury in traffic for a number of years, unless you caught one of the Pontiac Grand Prix sedans that copycatted the look.
I’m pretty sure I still have a few of the short-lived 2040 halogen bulbs for the Merc light bar kicking around somewhere…
Our first minivan was a ’93 Villager… it may have been a bit smaller than the Chryslers but on trips it still fit our four kids and retriever a lot better than did our Taurus wagon, and was much more reliable and better-driving than the alternatives. No problems tag I recall. It was replaced by a ’96 Windstar, which was roomier (kids get larger as time passes) and also had no problems, but didn’t drive as nicely. It was then succeeded by three Odysseys that really checked every box.