Five Things: five reasons the original Ford Transit is a legend
Monday, 13 July 2020
The original Ford Transit was an absolute legend that stayed in production for more than 20 years and was a massive success for Ford.
Today we look at five reasons why the original Transit was so awesome. There are way more than five, but that’s all we had room for.
It was impressively innovative
When the Transit first came out in 1965 it replaced the elderly Thames van that had struggled to keep up with the dominant Bedford van in the commercial segment.
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The Transit was light years more advanced than the Thames and its wider track gave it a massive cargo capacity advantage over the opposition.
The use of the short V4 engines helped massively with the Transit’s packaging and cargo space, while the sheer amount of different body styles offered – including short and long-wheelbase panel vans, crew cabs, pick up trucks and minibuses just to name a few – handed the Transit a massive advantage over the rest.
It had clever engines
The Transit was powered by two different V4 engines – one British, one German.
Both V4s would also do duty in each country’s respective versions of the Consul and Capri, while the German unit would also power a number of Saabs, as well as the American mid-engined Mustang I concept from 1962.
More significantly, both would also eventually be expanded into V6 versions that would power the Transit, but also become legends in their own right, with the Essex V6 powering such legends as the Broadspeed Capri and number of TVRs, while the Cologne V6 would power the Capri RS 2600 and Sierra XR4i (and XR4X4) among others.
The magnificent Clubmobil
In 1981 Ford teamed up with an outfit called the Hymer Company to produce the utterly magnificent Transit Clubmobil for the mainland European market.
The Transit Clubmobil featured a full custom interior with velour captain-style swivel seats, shag pile carpet, a motorsport steering wheel, unique Ronal 14'-inch alloy wheels, unique side windows, a folding back seat, a roof-mounted luggage box, a unique front spoiler, tinted glass, power-assisted steering, a spare wheel carrier and rear door ladder.
It was utterly magnificent and is sadly incredibly rare today – only 150 were produced over 3 years and it is thought that less than 20 still exist today.
Pop stars and criminals loved it
The Transit quickly found favour with the pop music industry, with its space and durability making it “the roadies‘ favourite” as it moved up-and-coming pop groups around Europe between gigs, often through the night.
A darker side of the Transit’s popularity was revealed by the London Metropolitan Police in 1972 when it called the Transit “Britain’s most wanted van.”
A Scotland Yard spokesman said at the time “Ford Transits are used in 95 per cent of bank raids. With the performance of a car and space for 1.75 tonnes of loot, the Transit is proving to be the perfect getaway vehicle…”
Supervan!
The original Transit formed the basis of the first two brilliantly mad Ford Supervans.
The original packed a 298kW V8 from the GT-40 meaning that it had a top speed of a frankly terrifying 240kmh and was barely distinguishable from a standard Transit apart from its wider track.
Supervan 2 cranked the concept up a couple of notches by using the chassis of a C100 Group C car wearing a fibreglass replica of a Mark 2 Transit body, powered by the C100's 3.3-litre Cosworth DFL (the Group C variant of the legendary DFV V8) and with a top speed of 280kmh.