Because you don’t go around delivering stuff for almost 50 years without picking up a few stories.
1) Transport an elephant. Faced with moving two baby elephants at London Zoo in 1965, handlers turned to their Transit to get the job done
2) Enter a boat race. Ford engineers once built a floating Transit to take part in the Maldon raft race in Essex, UK. It didn’t win.
3) Run a celebrity fruit business. Boxer Henry Cooper and his family used a Transit for their fruiterer business. And who wouldn’t want to call themselves a ‘fruiterer’?
4) Be mounted by a dinosaur. Model makers in Kent strapped a life-size 49ft-long Cetiosaurus to their Transit to haul it to a natural history park in Edinburgh.
5) Bend it like Tottenham. Top-flight footie was different in the 60s. This is how Spurs got about back then – Jimmy Greaves (in the yellow top on the left) and friends show off their humble team Transit.
6) Have a Royal night out. Apparently Wills and Kate used a white Transit to travel incognito when they were living on Anglesey. (Full disclosure: this is not the actual van.)
7) Pimp your ride. The custom-made XXL version is 7.4 metres long and kitted out with leather seats and LCD screens for movies or computer games.
8) Go gigging. Much of rock royalty started off touring in a Transit –Coldplay, Status Quo and, er, this lot – The Tremoloes?!
9) Go on a car chase. That’s what Michael Caine did in the Fourth Protocol… not a lot of people know that.
10) DONUT!!! Respect to the team at Transit Center Motorsport in Poland for their V8 Drift Bus.
11) Break a record. 48 students from Barking College near London crammed themselves into a Transit minibus in 1965 and won their place amidst the proud pantheon of record breakers.
12) See the world. Hughes Overland actually ran a Transit minibus service from London to Australia. A mere 10 weeks and 10,000 miles later, and you were there!
13) Or instead, go on a quick break. Very quick, in fact. This Transit took the world caravan towing record in 1985 at a nifty 170mph / 270 kph.
14) Race the sand dunes. This Transit battled over 7,500 miles of North African desert.
15) Be a stuntman for a day. Steve Matthews used his Transit to leap over 15 old cars. The only modifications included removing the windows and gaffer taping the doors and bonnet
16) Steal stuff. Such was the van’s handling and capability, UK Police were said to describe the Ford Transit “the best getaway vehicle of the 1970s”. DO NOT TRY THIS AT HOME, KIDS! IN FACT, DON’T STEAL EVER!!
17) Catch bad guys. These days, the good guys drive a Transit.
18) And finally, have a baby. In October 2013, little Alfie Kerr was delivered in the footwell of a Transit. His parents, Daniel and Jess, were on their way to the Furness General Hospital in Barrow, Cumbria. They didn’t quite make it in time. But both Alfie and the Transit are still doing well. (Photo: Cascade News)
Ford Motor Company, a global automotive industry leader based in Dearborn, Mich., manufactures or distributes automobiles across six continents. With about 181,000 employees and 65 plants worldwide, the company’s automotive brands include Ford and Lincoln. The company provides financial services through Ford Motor Credit Company. For more information about Ford and its products worldwide please visit www.corporate.ford.com.
Ford of Europe is responsible for producing, selling and servicing Ford brand vehicles in 50 individual markets and employs approximately 47,000 employees at its wholly owned facilities and approximately 67,000 people when joint ventures and unconsolidated businesses are included. In addition to Ford Motor Credit Company, Ford Europe operations include Ford Customer Service Division and 22 manufacturing facilities (13 wholly owned or consolidated joint venture facilities and nine unconsolidated joint venture facilities). The first Ford cars were shipped to Europe in 1903 – the same year Ford Motor Company was founded. European production started in 1911.
