Liberty

Nissan Shatai built the Liberty, and the name came in two stages. The M12 went on sale on 16 November 1998 as the Prairie Liberty, the third generation of a line Nissan had started in 1982 as the Prairie, a compact five-number minivan with sliding doors on both sides. Its powertrain and suspension came from the W11 Avenir: a 140 PS SR20DE with a Hyper CVT on front-drive cars, a four-speed automatic on four-wheel drive, and from 12 October 1999 a 230 PS SR20DET in the Highway Star GT4. Assembly left Nissan Shatai's Kyoto plant for Shonan when Kyoto closed at the end of March 2001 under the Nissan Revival Plan. At the minor change of 7 May 2001 Nissan cut Prairie from the name, reworked the nose and fitted the QR20DE, which it credited with roughly 12 percent better fuel economy on front-drive cars. Hong Kong kept the Prairie name. The Lafesta replaced it in December 2004.