All-new Transit and Transit Connect vans will join the new Ranger pick-up that arrives next year, while the Fiesta Van will get a mid-life refresh alongside its car donor vehicle.
The all-new Transit is still a couple of years away and will continue in both front- and rear-wheel drive form, but the current version also gets a new line-up of engines to meet the Euro5 regulations coming in at the end of this year. “The engineers have crawled over the drivetrain and delivered big improvements in fuel economy,” said Sharp. There is also a new long-wheelbase version of the more efficient Econetic Transit, which Ford claims would save operators £1600 in fuel over 80,000 miles. In addition to the engine changes, Ford is pushing service intervals out to 30,000 miles and two years.
The new Connect has an interesting job, because Ford insiders admit that the current model is “a little heavy and expensive, and not the most fuel efficient.”
“We’ve got tremendous heritage and reliability but maybe this is not what all of the industry looks for,” our contact told What Van? “Our biggest weakness, the segment where we’ve got to increase Ford’s share, is the light sub-1tonne which used to be the domain of the Ford Escort van.”
The next Transit Connect will also have an Econetic version, as the current drivetrainsa re replaced by those more suited to a low-emission version.
