Specifications
STORY
Nissan launched the Prairie in Japan in August 1982 and calls it the world's first minivan: a front-drive five-door with no centre pillar on either side and sliding rear doors, so a whole flank opened, with a 1.5-litre E15S or 1.8-litre CA18 and optional swivelling second-row seats. Dutch registrations began in March 1983, the United States took the car from May 1985 as the Stanza Wagon, and the pillarless body won the trade minister's invention award in 1987. The M11 of September 1988 went to North America as the Axxess and led to the Prairie Joy EV, announced on 17 June 1996 and leased to councils and fleets from the spring of 1997, which Nissan calls the world's first EV on the market with a lithium-ion battery; Japan's polar research institute ran one in Norway collecting Arctic air from 2000 to 2006. The name ended with the Prairie Liberty of November 1998, cut to Liberty in 2001.