page_title: Mercury Villager
section_title: Development
hierarchical_section_title: Mercury Villager / Background / Development
caption_attribution_description: 1996-1998 Mercury Villager and Nissan Quest photographed in College Park, Maryland, USA.
context_page_description: The Mercury Villager is a minivan that was marketed by the Mercury division of Ford. The first minivan ever sold by Mercury, two generations were sold from the 1992 to 2002 model years. Competing against the Chrysler minivans and the General Motors APV minivans, the front-wheel drive Villager was introduced between the Ford Aerostar and the Ford Windstar.
  Throughout its production, the Villager was a product of a joint venture between Ford and Nissan; developed by both manufacturers, the Villager and the Nissan Quest were produced by Ford at its Ohio Assembly plant in Avon Lake, Ohio.
  After the 2002 model year, Mercury discontinued the Villager, replacing the model line for the 2004 model year with a revived Monterey.
context_section_description: At the beginning of 1988, Ford and Nissan entered a joint venture to develop an all-new minivan sold by both automakers.  Under the terms of the agreement, the development and engineering of the vehicles was done by Nissan (in the United States); the company also supplied the engine and transmission.  Ford would manufacture the vehicles in its own facility, providing components for the vehicle.
  Development officially commenced later that year, codenamed VX54.  Under Nissan, the VX54 program was to jointly replace the Van and the Axxess in North America; the Ford version became a Mercury (coinciding with the simultaneous development of the WIN88 program, later the Ford Windstar)  The final designs were chosen by Nissan in 1989, with both companies commencing testing of prototypes in 1990; real-world testing was done through 1991, as development concluded at the end of that year.
  While 1980s minivans traditionally replaced full-size station wagons as family-use vehicles, during the development process, designers benchmarked the mid-size Mercury Sable station wagon (instead of the full-size Mercury Colony Park) as its goal for features, ride, and handling.  While all-wheel drive was initially planned in the VX54 program, slow sales of Chrysler AWD minivans led to Ford dropping it from development of the Villager.
caption: Mercury Villager (red) and Nissan Quest (blue)
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