The place: Dearborn, Michigan. The date: March 1, 1994. “We here in the Ford organization (that we like to think of as a big family) are on the verge of something big. Ever since Chrysler introduced the minivan over a decade ago, the entire world auto industry has thrown everything we had at them, but people being people, they have continued to buy Voyagers, Caravans and Town & Countries in serious numbers.
“We have given the public some pretty good products, much more capable of carrying loads and hauling trailers, but the public has voted with its wallets and purses and our Aerostar has not gotten the job done. But that changes this month. We have listened to you, America. We have paid attention and are on the cusp of offering you the minivan you have told us you want. Let this be notice to Chrysler Corporation: America will no longer have to choose between getting a great, family-friendly minivan and taking risks on quality. Why? Because Quality is still Job-1 here at the Ford Motor Company. Just watch – once our new Windstar hits showrooms the car-buying world will have the best minivan ever!”
Alright, this was never actually published anywhere and there is absolutely no proof that anyone at the Ford Motor Company ever gave such a speech, either in public or in private. But every single one of you knows they believed this down deep in their little oval blue hearts. There had been many attempts to one-up Chrysler in the minivan market. There had been minivans more truck-like (Astro and Aerostar), there had been minivans made more stylish (the GM Dustbusters), some made smaller and more car-like (the original Honda Odyssey) and even some quirky and unusual entries from Japan (Quest/Villager and Previa). But now, for the first time, the Ford Motor Company was about to hit the Chrysler bull’s eye dead on. THIS, the new Ford Windstar, would be the ultimate minivan.
It is kind of incredible, when we think about it, that it took a full decade before an American competitor finally figured out the secret that Chrysler had been waving under everyone’s noses: Start with the platform of a popular front wheel drive car, create an attractive but practical body to envelop it, give it an interior that caters to an active, upscale family, and there you have it. No truckishness and no crazy style statements. Just an honest, comfortable people-mover was all Chrysler ever needed to Hoover-up downpayments, and now Ford had figured out the secret. Or so it looked in 1995.
I recall strolling through a big-city Ford dealer in the early spring of 1995. I had been searching for the mythical Club Wagon (which was still rumored to exist, though you couldn’t tell from dealer stocks) when we came upon the first Windstar I had ever seen – and possibly the first one this dealer had seen, too. It was unlocked, and the Mrs. and I crawled inside. “Wow”, I thought, “Ford is finally going to do to Chrysler with minivans what it has done to everyone else with the Explorer.”
This was still the era of “Fat Ford” when nice fabrics and cool little features packed new Ford vehicles. The Windstar may have been one of the last of Fat Ford’s new vehicle introductions before Jacques Nasser transitioned the company into the era of Cheap Nasty Ford. Anyway, that Windstar was modern, it was attractive, and it was inviting. I actually paused for a moment when I ran across a loaded up year-old Club Wagon at a dealership, realizing that I could have a very nice new Windstar for the same price.
The Windstar continued its winning ways by making the big 3.8 Essex V6 the standard engine on the 120 inch wheelbase platform designed to battle Chrysler’s “Grand” long wheelbase versions, which had become the heart of the market. A 4 speed automatic transaxle (AX4S) completed the setup, which was sure to knock Chrysler back to the basement where it belonged.
But . . . that is not what really happened.
Things got off to a decent start in 1995 with over 220,000 units out the door. The Windstar compared well against the Chrysler triplets – although those Chrysler vans were now several years old and not terribly far removed from the originals that dated to 1983. But then 1996 happened. And that was a problem for Ford.
For starters, it was about doors. Ford had asked lots of people in focus groups if three doors was enough for a minivan, and the response had been overwhelmingly “yes”. But we all know that sometimes we don’t really know what we want until someone serves it to us, and Chrysler’s new 4 door package (optional at first) was a re-calibration for the entire industry. Suddenly a 3 door minivan was, well, so last year.
This particular example shows Ford’s original solution – the 1998 “King Door”, which stretched the driver’s door back farther into the side panel to allow skinny, agile little children to slither behind Mom’s driver’s chair.
Unless they needed to be belted into safety seats, and then Mom had to walk all the way around and put everyone in aircraft style, just like the old days. 1998’s 21 month model year (which began in January of 1997 because the original door arrangement was untenable) saw production of only 190,173 units.
Then there were the other problems. It is hard to know where to begin. OK, probably the transmission. The AX4S had proved none too robust in the Taurus (especially behind a 3.8), which was 700 pounds lighter even before typical passenger and cargo loads were factored in. Raise your hand if you knew someone who owned one of these and managed to avoid a second or third transmission by the time the note was paid off warranty was up? Yeah, didn’t think so. People got to where they expected a weak transmission in their Chrysler minivan, but not this weak. And it didn’t come with all the other benefits of a Chrysler.
Then there were the head gaskets in the 3.8L V6. Fortunately they were easily accessible. Oh wait, no they were not. And then the rust got started in northern climates. Like – – – Dearborn where the things had been designed. In going mano-a-mano with Chrysler, Ford managed to build a vehicle that made a ’76 Volare look brilliant. It did not help that by 1996 the 3.3 and 3.8L engines in the Chryslers were on the way to becoming known as among the most durable, trouble-free engines of the decade. Or that the Chrysler vans were some of the most rust-resistant products from Chrysler since K.T. Keller had run the show.
Ford eventually fixed the engine problem – by making the 3.0 Vulcan V6 standard, allowing those willing to sacrifice power for durability to avoid the inevitable head gasket replacement. Unfortunately, other than the addition of the 3.slow and some improvement from the disastrous early transmissions, the van’s weaknesses were not significantly addressed through the entire run, which never broke through the 225k unit barrier and slouched towards 100k by the end (including fleet purchases). Which is another way of saying that Ford never came close to Chrysler’s perennial half-million unit annual volumes.
The 1999 redesign extended the Windy’s life through 2003 (through 2007 if we count the somewhat improved Freestar variant). But sadly, the van that showed more promise than any of the other Chrysler challengers never really challenged. It is funny how the minds that brought us innovative, paradigm-bending vehicles like the Taurus and the Explorer (not to mention anvil-reliable vehicles like the Panther triplets and the E and F series trucks) were incapable of handling a basic minivan. How hard indeed.
I never saw many of these in the late-90’s and rarely see one today. Now I know why.
Toyota replacing the funky Previa with the new ’98 Sienna (with its silky smooth 1MZ engine) no doubt added to the Windstar’s sales slide.
The conventionally designed 99 Honda Odyssey was the second of that 1-2 punch after the 98 Sienna. The thing is, Ford had maybe the last window of opportunity to get a solid foothold in 1995 when the Chryslers were the only real competition. Sadly, the Windstar was not the right vehicle to grow and prosper in the segment.
Ha, there’s an article I’ve been waiting for.
https://www.curbsideclassic.com/cars-of-a-lifetime/coal-1996-ford-windstar-anomaly%E2%80%8F/
There’s our Windstar CC, between having the 3.0 and careful maintenance ours was rather trouble free and I’d say the 3.0 had more oomph than the 3.3 in the Caravan that replaced it.
You’re right on the money with the Windstar problems, they also cheapened the interior over the years to the point that we wouldn’t buy a Freestar from our Ford sales guy father because we didn’t like the inside.
JP is your Windstar Whisperer friend still driving his 99?
FoMoCo made a “luxury” Freestar. It was called the Mercury Monterey built form 2004-2007. They sold 32,195 examples over the entire run.
Ford pulled the plug on Mercury in Canada in 1999. Don’t think I’ve ever seen one of these even on a trip to the states.
“JP is your Windstar Whisperer friend still driving his 99?”
Last I knew the 99 had gone away, but he got an 02-ish version when his father died. It was a Wisconsin car, so you can imagine what the body looked like, and the interior was Cheap Nasty Ford at its peak (trough?). It may still be sitting at the back corner of the driveway for occasional mulch runs. We have not talked much since Covid, so it may have finally gone away.
And here is a COAL of the ’03 Windstar with the 3.8L Essex no less. No head gasket problem though.
https://www.curbsideclassic.com/cars-of-a-lifetime/coal-2003-ford-windstar-sel-a-hint-of-luxury/
Isn’t it amazing how a company that can build millions of reliable F- and E-Series trucks, is the primary supplier of police vehicles in this country, and perfected mass production cannot build a few hundred-thousand decent minivans?
Truly one of the great unanswered questions of modern times.
For years my father-in-law, he of the uncanny ability to find ultra low-mileage vehicles, has been waiting for a certain mid- to late-90s Windstar to come up for sale. It is had one old lady owner and has like, maybe, 40,000 miles. He mentions it periodically.
The lady recently died. I’m really hoping he’s forgotten about it although from what I’ve heard the van is pristine.
I thought that the Ford Aerostar Eddie Bauer AWD and Toyota Previa S/C All-Trac were the ultimate minivans. Tried like hell to find a good used example of either van and never could.
I have shared before that we had a pro basketball player locally (Lance Stephenson) whose playing could be either brilliant or awful, with little in between. Sports types referred to Good Lance and Bad Lance, never knowing which would show up to a given game.
Ford showrooms were like that in the 90s. There was Good Ford and Bad Ford. The Windstar was absolutely Bad Ford.
Informative review. I had never paid any attention to these, they were a bit before my time so I knew nothing of their development history, the superiority of the Chrysler competitors, or the specifics of the Windstar’s problems. I remember vaguely that they were a Big Deal at launch, and looked modern. It may therefore be telling that someone with no explicit knowledge of the vehicles was still aware through osmosis and grapevine that they had serious quality problems and were, in laymen’s terms, piles of garbage to be avoided. Now I know how and why they gained that reputation.
Around the time my wife and I were married in 2005, we’d occasionally semi-joke about buying a minivan someday. Now we both owned Fords already (Contour for me, Thunderbird for her), and my wife’s grandfather had worked in a Ford factory for 25 years and her family had owned a long string of Fords since their Model A. In other words, more loyal Ford buyers have never existed.
But we both agreed: “We’ll never buy a Ford minivan.”
Each one of the Windstar’s sins is hard to forgive, but the combination of all of them mixed together in one family car is almost unimaginable. The transmission problem was so legendary, even completely non-car people had heard of it by then. The interior cheapening became icky as time went on, and sent families who just wanted to be in nice surroundings running to their local Toyota dealer. And the lack of the second sliding door made one wonder what exactly Ford designers were paid to do.
Anyway, this seems (somehow) to be a very well-cared-for Windstar… whitewall tires, and headlights that aren’t fogged? I haven’t seen an example like this since about 1999.
The history of the minivan is a great read, not only the Chrysler story, but how competitors have had such a tough time coming up with a viable alternative. While Toyota and Honda (eventually) figured it out, Chrysler’s domestic foes, Ford and GM, never seemed to be able to get it right and, ultimately, simply gave up, focusing, instead, on convincing families that a big SUV would be a better choice for people and cargo chores.
The sad wild card in this tale is Mazda. To me, they had the perfect answer in the 2nd generation MPV which followed the ‘magic seat’ Odyssey by one year. It was the smalled minivan, comparable to the SWB Dodge Caravan, but included that 3rd row folding magic seat and power sliding door windows, as well. Underpowered at first with a 2.5L Duratec V6 and 4-speed auto, it was just about perfect after a couple years when the engine was upgraded to a 3.0L and 5-speed, with just the right combination of size and practicality making it virtually car-like in driveability. Alas, it didn’t sell well and was eventually replaced by the even smaller Mazda5 which didn’t sell much better.
To me, it always looked sort of like a pregnant whale, which, while minivans don’t generally look lithe and athletic, didn’t help. Nevertheless, I recall being excited when I scored one as a rental for some reason when they were still pretty new and I needed a vehicle (any vehicle would have worked) for a weekend. I can’t remember anything else about that particular experience except that it was silver on gray so the initial excitement must have worn off very quickly. This was all pre-marriage and pre-kids and would prove to be the one and only time I have ever driven or ridden in a Windstar besides perhaps a Las Vegas taxi version.
This is an engaging occasional series, I can’t believe we are on episode seven already, it barely even seems that there were that many minivans on offer.
What caught my eye here were the years … intro’ed in 1995, at which time Chrysler minivans were ubiquitous, and it took that long for Ford?? Also, a year by which Camry, Accord, Corolla and others were well locked into the architecture which they still (successfully) use today … yet these didn’t stay around long. And built until 2003/2007?? That was just yesterday, in automotive terms. But these vans have pretty much disappeared from our roads and our memories. For a company that brought us Explorer and F150, and continues to get customers for the Mustang after almost 60 years, this one deserves the “Deadly Sin” title.
Except it didn’t take Ford that long. Ford had offered the RWD/AWD Aerostar from 1986-1997 and Mercury offered the FWD Villager from 1992-2002.
No, Ford/Mercury rebadged the Nissan Quest, there’s nothing Ford about that van and the Aerostar and Chevy Astro are generally considered downsized traditional full-size vans instead of what’s commonly accepted as minivans, i.e. FWD and based on a car platform rather than that of a truck. Not that the Aerostar and Astro don’t have their fans and generally can be long-lasting, but most families liked the more car-like experience better.
I used the word offered not built. Even though the Quest/Villager was built in a Ford Plant at Avon Lake, Ohio. The argument could be made that Ford did not build a minivan until the Windstar because the Aerostar was basically a re-badged Mazda MPV.
This is the same strawman that everyone uses about “Cadillac is late with crossovers.” Yeah but, no body mentions that Buick, GMC, and Chevrolet have offered a wide compliment of crossovers since the Lambada came out in 2007.
It just an excuse to bash the brand. I think GM looks at their entire portfolio and says “Crossovers, we have it covered.” Just as Ford did with minivans in this era.
Would GM have sold anymore Acadia Denali’s or Buick Enclave’s if the had wreath and crests instead?
Would Ford and Mercury have sold anymore Aerostars or Villagers if they had been designed by Ford instead.
I think the answer to both questions is no.
“because the Aerostar was basically a re-badged Mazda MPV.”
What? The Aerostar came out in 1985 with an abundance of Ford Ranger components with most built in St. Lous. The MPV came out in 1988 and was built in Japan and based upon an existing Mazda platform.
So how is the Aerostar a re-badged Mazda?
It was before my time. Born in 1983. I know Mazda and Ford had a relationship around that time that led to the Navajo, Probe, Capri and other vehicles. It’s amazing if the MPV and Aerostar are unrelated. They always looked the same to me.
The Navajo was a Mazda badged Ford, the Probe was a Mazda underneath, and the last Capri was from Ford Australia.
That said, the ’91 to ’96 Escort did have Mazda underpinnings.
From Wikipedia: Ford Australia produced a Mazda Miata rival named the Ford Capri from 1989, which ironically, was based around many Mazda 323 mechanics.
Actually the Quest was the result of a JV between Ford and Nissan. They jointly developed it, although obviously Nissan contributed the Maxima platform and drive train. But the body was a joint development. So it’s not quite fair to say the Villager was a rebadged Nissan Quest.
It is a bit odd, seeing as how it used a Nissan Platform, Nissan Engines and Transmissions but was built in a Ford factory and thus probably mainly engineered by Nissan but yes just saying just rebadged is a bit strong, as without the joining of the forces neither an would have been built.
Ford did not rebage the Quest. It was a jointly developed with engineers from both companies involved and parts out of both company’s bins were used on both vehicles.
Yes Nissan supplied the engine and transmission and the front suspension was based on the Maxima.
https://www.curbsideclassic.com/curbside-classics/the-nissan-quest-and-mercury-villager-official-car-of-washington-heights/
It was also built in a Ford owned plant by Ford employees.
from https://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/os-xpm-2000-06-08-0006080365-story.html
“We are in negotiations with Ford for a very light reskin for the 2001 model year, and then a very short production run for the 2002 model,” said Fred Suckow, corporate manager for Nissan’s truck and minivan model lines.
What caught my eye here were the years … intro’ed in 1995, at which time Chrysler minivans were ubiquitous, and it took that long for Ford??
The Ford Aerostar arrived in 1985, just one year after the first Chrysler minivans. It was quite successful; well over 2 million were sold through its run in 1997. Sure, it was RWD, but then so was the Previa. And that meant it could tow better, and it had an AWD version.
It’s easy to say Ford got the minivan formula wrong with the Aerostar, but owners and dealers were quite happy with them. It was in every way a legitimate minivan.
In at least one year and I think more, the Aerostar was the best selling minivan name plate. Yes, that was thanks to the fact that Chrysler split up their buyers between Dodge and Chrysler Plymouth dealers.
So the Aerostar was certainly right for a lot of buyers.
Chevy and GMC split up the Astro/Safari as well, I have not looked up the total sales though…
We had a ’96 Windstar with the 3.8. It replaced a ’93 Villager, and was succeeded by ’99, ’03, and ’07 Odysseys.
The Windstar was the first car we ever had that needed no return to the dealer to fix a flaw. It also had nothing go wrong, with a big “but”… we only had it for 36,000 miles; it was our first and only-ever lease.
We much preferred the Windstar to the Chryslers, as we did the Villager (vs the short WB MoPars). The Honda’s were, of course, so much better than all of these that they were in another league.
How’d the Windstar compare to the (Nissan) Villager, besides in terms of space? Or was that the main reason for moving to it?
Jim: Space was the reason. The Villager handled better and generally felt like a higher-quality, more substantial piece.
The year after we moved here, three families (who were friends) we knew at our kids’ school all bought new Windstars. Wow! Our ’92 Grand Caravan suddenly looked a bit elderly compared to them.
Within 3-4 years, they were all gone. Everyone of them ate their head gaskets and transmissions.
Our GC soldiered on for another ten years (albeit with several new transmissions).
“We have given the public some pretty good products, much more capable of carrying loads and hauling trailers, but the public has voted with its wallets and purses and our Aerostar has not gotten the job done.
I can’t find sales stats per year, but the Aerostar sold well over 2 million units in total, and was probably selling some 250+k per year in its best years. That’s pretty good, in terms of a profitable product line.
Realistically, nobody was going to be able to match or beat Chrysler’s minivan sales. They had the benefit of being something new and exciting that became the preferred choice in part because of the “me-too” effect. Every mommy at the school pickup zone wanted one.
One could argue that offering an alternative that was more suitable to towing and with AWD made some real sense; more so than trying to compete head-on.
Ford might have been better served by a gen2 Aerostar, especially since compact RWD vans were a very popular segment in the commercial market. Ford did GM a huge favor by dropping the Aerostar, as it gave a big boost to their Astro van. The reason Ford did that was because they needed more capacity for their red-hot Explorer.
The Explorer’s outsized success also shows how hard it is to compete with whatever is the segment leader. It’s easier said than done.
Does anyone know why Ford and Mazda decided to transition both of their minivans to FWD around the same time period? Why not transition just Ford Aerostar to Windstar and leave the MPV AWD/RWD? Instead of ceding the entire RWD/AWD minivan market to GM?
I always assumed that it was because they were built on the same platform. Now I know that they were not.
Only reason that I can think of is new crash standards, gas mileage (though real-world the Windstar was a major gas guzzler compared to other options), or profitability (cheaper to build FWD) than RWD/AWD?
Yes, trying to find production figures for some of these are really tough. The Aerostar did settle into a nice little niche, as did the Chevy Astro. The Aerostar sold pretty well right up to the end when it ran up against some passive restraint mandates (as I recall) and Ford was unwilling to invest in updates.
It seems apparent that, as you say, they chose to ride the Explorer and Ranger and move their minivan customers to the Windstar. With enough capacity the Aerostar probably had a niche, but maybe not a big enough one to justify the expense. I think the introduction of the Expedition may have been intended to fill the role of a more profitable family vehicle that could tow a camper or boat.
The Astro/Safari, and the Aerostar, did okay as passenger minivans, but where they truly shined was in commercial service. Here in The Land That Rust Forgot™ I still see plenty of Astros and Safaris in commercial service.
The delineation continues today. If a magazine or website talks about minivans, they almost never include the Ford Transit Connect (or the RAM PMC, although that’s not available in a passenger version). Although it’s a decent passenger minivan, I don’t suspect 10% of the Transit Connects sold are the passenger version (taxis aside). I’m sure the lack of a 3rd row of seating puts it out of contention.
Last I checked you could still get a Promaster City with a wagon option rear seat and rear windows.
Huh. I didn’t bother checking the website for its existence. I’ve never seen on, so I made a (foolish) assumption.
The Transit Connect Passenger Wagon comes standard with 3 rows of seats. The standard configuration is 6 passenger but switching out the 2nd row buckets for a 3 passenger 60/40 bench seat is a no cost option.
They even fold down to make a nice flat load floor. https://owner.ford.com/support/how-tos/interior/seats/how-to-fold-transit-connect-second-and-third-row-seats.html#
Another thing about which I had no idea. I imagine a full complement of 7 occupants might be tough on that 4-banger, though.
I’ll say this; a couple years ago there were Transit Connects and Grand Caravans in shuttle fleet where I was staying that summer. I was stunned to discover that the Transits were way more spacious in the third row. Like no contest. Shocked, I ask the driver which he preferred to drive. “The Fords”.
I owned a 1998 Windstar for three years, our one and only minivan. With two pre-schoolers at the time, we needed the capability of carrying up to 4-5 children for car pools, something our 1991 Explorer could not do. The Windstar had a very nice, even plush, car-like ride and was very quiet, which was a huge contrast to the noisy and uncomfortable Explorer and the primary reason (along with price) we chose it over a mid-level Dodge. The lack of a drivers-side rear door became a real hindrance when the kids grew too large to slip out the “King door”.
We had no trouble with our Windstar, even with the 3.8 liter V6 and 4-speed auto, but sold it with 35k miles on the clock because the car pool turned out to be a non-issue and my wife absolutely hated driving it. We replaced it with 2001 Volvo V70 wagon, which brought with it a whole other world of reliability issues, but seated up to 5 kids with seatbelts and was a far more stylish conveyance.
I knew one guy who drove a 99 and the 02 he inherited from his father – both of them lasted way longer than they should have, and I’m not sure what engine either had.
Other than that guy, I knew several people with the early versions, and every single one got socked for at least one transmission and then dumped their van when the second one ground itself to pieces. I cannot tell you how many times I thanked my lucky stars that I bought the 94 Club Wagon instead of a 95 Windstar.
I don’t know what drivetrain engineers were doing in the 90s but for so many vehicles it seemed like there was a corporate doctrine “make them just adequate enough for x engine and x chassis, then make it 20% lighter and cheaper”. You don’t see A lot of remaining examples of cars from Ford’s fat period specifically because of transmission failures, it wasn’t just limited to the AX4S in Windstars, even the venerable 4R70w/AODE in Panthers, SN95s, MN12s and trucks had various issues that didn’t really get ironed out until decade’s end.
It’s kind of eye opening to me the Windstar debuted before the third gen Chrysler minivans, as I always saw the styling as similar but messier on the Ford, like a bad imitation. They kind of remind me of the van version of the 70s Torino’s in their rather bloated physique, and even have a sculpting in the bodylines reminiscent of them above the rear wheel.
There was no excuse for Ford to have put out a van like the Windstar a decade after they saw what Chrysler put out. The Windstar didn’t leap-frog the Chrysler products. Instead the Windstar was, at best, a me-too product. The engineering problems were inexcusable. Their Aerostar might not have been what Chrysler’s minivans were, but at least the Aerostar didn’t stink up the market, and were popular as small towing minivans with plush interiors. There was actually a market for the Aerostar and the Astro vans. There was no market for a bad minivan like the Windstar.
The Dustbusters were a disaster. Driving one was like steering a car from the rear seat. GM spent a billion rolling them onto the roads and then spent years recouping that billion. The Aztek and Rendezvous were SUV version of Dustbusters and GM ended up creating an attractive “sports-van” line of Lumina, Terraza, Montana and VUE vans, yet all the Dustbusters suffered from ancient engines and transmissions.
Toyota took their compact pick up and put a box on it. With the exception of Honda and Miata, that is what the Japanese offered at first. The Sienna was a California-designed aero-van that sat on the Toyota pick up, replacing the box body. While it looked good, it was too damn expensive for just a Toyota pick up. Mitsubishi offered a box van based upon their pick up as well, but didn’t follow up years later with a new body as Toyota had.
Mitsubishi by this time had a series of small sedans with van doors that sat high and were quite family friends. Chrysler sold these mini-mini vans too.
The Mazda and the Honda were minivans without sliding doors and were small vans based on their FWD sedans. They were nice, but they weren’t in the same vein as the Chrysler minivans. Both were pretty good vans.
The car market during these years were still rewarding auto designs that were purposeful, flexible and efficient. The SUV boom changed the market completely. Instead of finding fame and fortune with a Ranger-based Aerostar, Ford found fame and fortune with a Ranger-based Explorer, which was cheaper to make and returned buckets of loot for the Blue Oval Team. Consequently, minivans looked passe’, and while Chrysler still makes the outstanding Pacifica and still sells the Dodge Caravan from a decade ago, the minivan market hasn’t been where the exciting profits could be mined as it was during the 1980s-1990s.
I find it interesting that Ford’s two best minivans of the 90s were designed by someone else. In addition to the Nissan Quest based Mercury Villager, European Ford had a major seller with the Galaxy which was a jointly developed with the VW Sharan. and was a class leader in its time.
I drove a Galaxy all over Ireland a few years ago and it was quite good. The most memorable part was the seats, all 7 looked exactly the same and all of the ones in the rear (2+3) could be adjusted fore and aft, folded flat, reclined, or onto itself to make a tray table individually, nobody was affected by anyone else. Slick.
I owned a ‘97 Windstar, bought new in Nov-‘96… dark blue with a camel-colored interior. We got a little over 100k mostly trouble-free miles out of it, before it started with what appeared to be symptoms of a blown head gasket, but which the Ford dealer could never properly diagnose, let alone repair. Traded it in on a new 2001 Highlander that we still use for grocery/Home Depot runs. It now has 235k totes trouble-free miles.
My brother bought a Windstar and my sister bought a Village, at the same time in 1996. Each had driven Honda’s before, but Honda had no minivan yo offer at that time. The Windstar was much larger. The Windstar broke down constantly and had engine, transmission troubles. The interior just fell apart from a very cheap build. My or other replaced it with a Honda Odyssey in 1999, when the warranty ran out.. The Villager was much better. They never had any problems with the engine or drivetrain. The interior was ok, but better than the Windstar. The body and interior was Ford’s part of the Nissan/Ford partnership. Nissan did a much better job. The Villager was not a rebadged Nissan Quest. It was a jointly developed vehicle. (The Aerostar and Mazda MPV had bi connection at all. Ford and Mazda collaborated on the small cars such as Escort, Probe, Fusion, and their Mazda counterparts). My sister keep that Villager van for nine years and then also bought a Honda Odyssey. Neither ever went back to a Ford product. I had one disastrous Ford and returned to Honda as well.
Styling-wise, the original Windstar looked like an Aerostar with more rounded edges. A similar comparison was made to when the Nissan Pathfinder was last redesigned: “The new one looks like the outgoing model taken out to melt in the sun.” IMO the original van actually looks more stylish than the redesigned ’99.
Both vans eventually came with the 3.0L Vulcan standard & had head gasket trouble with the more powerful options–4.0L Cologne for Aerostar & 3.8L Essex for Windstar. Transmission issues were abundant for both also, but the Windstar especially. This in fact still seems to hold true for ANY front-wheel-drive van when used for anything beyond normal driving, hence the reason more truck-like vans like the Astro/Safari continued to sell well past their intended expiration dates until stricter safety regs finally brought them down. There indeed WAS (and to a lesser degree still is) a market for a capable, garage-friendly work van that could still be used to haul the family when not on the job. From this standpoint, you could very well say vans like the Astro, Aerostar, MPV, & Previa and whatever would count as their modern equivalents (Metris, Transit Connect, ProMaster City, etc.) were truly built as “compromise” vehicles–not excellent in one particular application but good in many different ones by having characteristics of both cars AND trucks, effectively defining the true meaning of “Multiple-Purpose Vehicle.” Most modern SUVs would also fall into this category.
About those white-wall tires–they would look MUCH better on one of the very early Aerostar cargo vans with the “dog dish” hubcaps! 🙂
I remember what a big deal these were when new. The Corporate and local dealership commercials were everywhere and they were well stocked up on these at the local Ford Dealerships in Denver.
The Windstar to me, Symbolizes the 180 degree turn it seems Ford took in the the mid 90’s, and how badly they seemed to misread the market with blunders in several segments. Contour/Mystique, 1996 Taurus/Sable, the 1997 Escort/Tracer and this vehicle all represent a downward slide that Ford seemed to take in the late 90’s. Polarizing designs, declining content and quality, and an overall feeling of mediocrity mark these years for Ford. Contour looked good but was too small, Taurus was a good size but the looks were take it or leave it. Escort take it or leave it as well, as well a big dip in quality. And Windstar, minivan segment joke.
25 Years on, its hard to feel too bad for Ford and the current position they find themselves in today. They badly misread the market and wasted several opportunities in key segments. It was an era of duds that were released to lukewarm at best fanfare, and then DE-contented and caricatured as sales goals fell further out of attainment. For all the billions that they wasted during this time, it’s too bad they couldn’t muster the resources to design a decent powertrain for the midsized sedans and the minivan. Perhaps not blowing huge sums on the ill-fated Contour and Mystique would have helped free up the cash they needed to be more competitive at the time.
Granted I believe that the quality improved in the 1996 Taurus, for example, but it was overshadowed by a polarizing design and aging powertrain.
I really enjoyed Ford’s cars of the early half of the 1990’s. I don’t know where it all went so wrong after 1994…..
I had two Windstars. A 93 and a 98. The 93 had the bigger engine, the 98 had the 3.0. Honestly I couldn’t tell the difference between the two of them.
I was kind of an oddball in the market. I bought these things when I was 23 and 28. I was a gigging musician and I needed a vehicle that could both haul equipment and be my daily driver the rest of the week. I hated the Caravans of the time and hate didn’t even begin to describe how I felt about the GM options. (I’ve never driven an Astro in my life that had adequate brakes. Felt like driving a loaded lumber wagon with cotton ball brake pads.)
I never really had a serious problem with either of them, save for a radiator I blew in the 93 on a trip to Toronto once. Other than that they were problem free.
In fact right now I am tearfully wishing I still had either of them as I prepare to move and load whatever belongings I can fit into a Chev HHR. Having either of those sweet old friends right now would be a blessing.
I loved my Windstars.
I’m looking for a list of minivans that do NOT have a driver side sliding door.