Nissan ends Quest/Villager venture with Ford

[tbear]

Just read this morning that Nissan ends Quest/Mercury Villager venture with Ford 2 years ahead of schedule, which means next year 2001. Ford will stop producing Villager in Feb 01 while Nissan in August 01.
Quest/Villager sold 126,000 units in 95, but only 40,000 in 1998 and 30,000 in 1999.

Is it a sign of yet another accelerated introduction of new model at Nissan? If so, we can see a new Quest as early as MY 2002. I think to be successfull, the new Quest should be as large as Odissey, packs a powerful V6 (maybe 250hp 3.5L), smartly designed, lots of features with same or lower price than the Odissey.

[2HD]

Finally !!! I've been waiting for that horrible venture to end from the getgo. It started out nice the styling anyways but reliability of the van was always questionable with ford workers building it. Now the size and power is not enough to compete and they put that ugly ass front end on it. It transformed to being on of the best looking minivans to being one of the Ugliest. Finally the line up will almost be complete. I hope they put the Pathfinder engine in it at least or give it 2 engine options the 210hp SC engine or the Paths engine for a more car like ride, better yet maybe the Max's engine would be better for that. But they are going to have to do one of those things if they want to be class leaders in HP cause Oddy has 210hp engine and the 2001 DC minvans have a whopping 230hp.

But the sad thing about all of this is that ford might be signaling the end of Mercury. Thats going to be a sad day for me if it happens http://forums.freshalloy.com/forum/images/icons/frown.gif

Hey Tbear could you post a link of where you got the info. Thanks

[tbear]

2HD, the news is on http://www.autonews.com and click on one of the headlines.

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial[/img]quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by 2HD:
Hey Tbear could you post a link of where you got the info. Thanks <HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

[Slack00]

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial[/img]quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by 2HD:

But the sad thing about all of this is that ford might be signaling the end of Mercury. Thats going to be a sad day for me if it happens http://forums.freshalloy.com/forum/images/icons/frown.gif

<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

I kinda doubt it...have you been to their website recently? They have a Mercury Marauder concept that looks pretty mean. It would basically be a Ford version of the late and great Chevy Impala witht the Cobra engine. They have also unvieled the new Mercury Montaineer, which is taking a departure from FOrd Explorer clone status. The Cougar is actually selling pretty welll (or it was, when it first debuted...dunno how its doing now). I think they will remain small for a while, but dying? Nah....

[**DONOTDELETE**]

The new Quest might be based on a Renault design. With Renault investing in Nissan, there might be some Renault vehicles with Nissan nameplates on them.

[**DONOTDELETE**]

My cousen has a 95 Villager. 5 years, 0 problems. On the other hand, I know a guy whose Quest's transmission died at 30K miles.

as for the future, don't hold your breath about Renault based vehicle. Expect Odysseish van based on Maxima http://forums.freshalloy.com/forum/images/icons/wink.gif