Picture Time: More of the Mercury Villager Nautica


I’m back again. Shortly after today’s QOTD about special editions went live, I received an email back from a kind contact at Ford. She provided me with the press photos of the Mercury Villager Nautica I had requested. Since they’re so nice, and you probably haven’t seen them anywhere else, it’s Picture Time.
Feast your eyes on this tasty minivan.

It turns out I was wrong (write that down), and there was another color available for the Villager Nautica — this striking raspberry and white combination. I’m certain I haven’t seen one this color in the wild.

Mercury knew you needed somewhere to put your Bugle Boy jeans and fanny pack, so buyers were provided with this special Nautica bag, in subtle banana yellow.

And here’s that glorious two-tone interior as it looked when new. This appears to be the grey leather option.

Back to blue, showing the scale of the quite large duffel. I’ll bet I could fit twelve pairs of stone wash jeans in there.
[Images: Ford Motor Company]
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Mom had one of these from new in 96, I got it as a hand-me-down first car in 1998. Ugly paint scheme aside, the Villager was actually a wonderful product. It was one of the first vans to have car-like driving dymanics, it was exceptionally reliable for us (we had 2 of them, in fact). I loved it. It was just big enough to fit 7 and would fit a mattress with the seats removed.
My baseball teammate's mom had one of these. One of the earlier minivans I remember with rear seat audio controls. My family, base model Plymouth Voyager with crank windows. At least it was a V6. I was from the poor part of town.