ONE FORD is bringing theTransit to the U.S. To date, the One Ford convergence of the company’s North American and European models has been restricted to smaller cars like the Fiesta and Focus, soon the Escape and Fusion/Mondeo, and one truck, the Transit Connect. Bigger trucks like the F-Series and the Econoline were market-specific.
Econoline development has been stagnant for years, however, so Ford has announced it will build and sell its all-new, seventh-generation fu Il-size Transit here beginning in calendar 2013. The Transit eventua Ily will replace the E-Series van, as it’s now formally known, but the two will be on sale side by side for a couple years. This includes commercial panel and passenger models ofthe Econoline and Transit with windows.
Ford will build the Transit in its Kansas City facility, and expects it will be 300 pounds lighter and offer 25-percent-better fuel economy than the current E-Series. Ford declined to say which powertrains will be offered, and whether any involve diesel, and if all-wheel drive will be offered alongside rear drive. Ford will
continue to build the E-Series stripped chassis and cutaway for use as small buses and other commercial applications.
The Econoline has long been the stereotypical favorite of budding rock-’n’-roll bands for its amp and instrument-carrying capacity. Country singer Nanci Griffith recorded “Ford Econoline” in the late 1980s; Jim’s Big Ego referred to one in the hip-hop/folk song,”He Said, She Said”; and Canadian band Econoline Crush emerged from the Seattle grunge movement in the early’90s.
The van launched as the 1961 Falcon Econoline and was considered a kind of compact truck until it took its current form in the 1970s. The European-designed Transit launched in 1965, and Ford has sold more than 6 million through six generations, on five continents. (LATEST CAR NEWS)
