The Ford Transit is a range of panel vans, minibuses, and pickup trucks, produced by the Ford Motor Company in Europe which has been the best-selling light commercial vehicle in Europe for 40 years, and in some countries the term "Transit" has passed into common usage as a generic term applying to any light commercial van in the Transit's size bracket.
The key to the Ford Transit's success was the sheer number of different body styles available, including:
Panel vans in long and short wheelbase forms,
pick-up truck
minibuses
crew-cabs and many more
In the UK in 1965, Ford used the Essex V4 engine for 1.7litre and 2.0 litre petrol engines. Later in 1978 the facelifted version of the Ford Transit debuted with the introduction of the Pinto engine from the Cortina replacing the Essex V4.
Ford introduced the Transit Connect, a smaller panel van based on the C170 platform and which replaced the older Escort and Fiesta based models. The Ford Transit Connect shares very little with the full-size Transit in terms of engineering, although is produced alongside the larger van in a new purpose built facility in Turkey.
During 2002 2004, ford introduced many new features and engines, including:
High Pressure Common Rail in diesel engines
125PS (92 kW) HPCR 2.0litre in the FWD
Instrument cluster with a digital odometer
RWD HPCR - the 135PS (99 kW) 2.4 litre variant
6-speed MT-82 RWD gearbox
Ford celebrated its win as International Van of the Year 2007' by building a stretch limo style van and named it The Transit XXL', which was the most expensive Transit ever.
