{"id":418,"date":"2015-08-18T07:55:55","date_gmt":"2015-08-18T07:55:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.fordtransitengines.co.uk\/blog\/?p=418"},"modified":"2025-01-09T07:03:10","modified_gmt":"2025-01-09T07:03:10","slug":"ford-transit-as-the-backbone-of-britain-for-last-50-years","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.fordtransitengines.co.uk\/blog\/ford-transit-as-the-backbone-of-britain-for-last-50-years\/","title":{"rendered":"Ford Transit as the Backbone of Britain for Last 50 Years"},"content":{"rendered":"

Let\u2019s have a look at the prestigious history of Ford Transit through time when it celebrates its 50th birthday<\/h2>\n

In the motoring history, the UK has had its fair share and in that, the biggest chunk, unquestionably, goes to none other than Ford Transit<\/strong><\/a>. Who would have thought that a simple van \u2013 which left the production line on 9 August 1965 \u2013 would become a legend one day? Over a span of glorious 50 years, the range has expanded so much that it now encompasses four models, powered by some of the most efficient diesel engines<\/strong><\/a> of this time, and over eight million Transits have found their new home worldwide.<\/p>\n

When did it all start?<\/h3>\n

It was the year 1964 when the \u201cProject Recap\u201d born, the team led by Ed Baumgartner \u2013known as the godfather of the Transit \u2013 was given the task to create a miracle.<\/p>\n

On the first day at the Transit office, a huge red book listing all the parts and costs was handed to Brian Eckersley, now 78, who worked in production planning and Peter Best, 77, to keep an eye on the book so the new project would complete on time and on specified budget.<\/p>\n

When the first clayed design was presented, it didn\u2019t make a good impression and most of the team thought of it as extremely ugly.<\/p>\n

So, what happened next?<\/h3>\n

What possibly could have happened? As the time flew, the design of the van evolved, and so did the Project Recap name. For the new model \u2013 due to replace the outgoing vans \u2013 a new naming convention had been established at Ford UK<\/strong><\/a>, they called it the V Series, after the already on sale Ford D Series trucks.<\/p>\n

Right before the van\u2019s launch, William Batty, then-new Ford Managing director was requested to drive the V Series and the Taunus Transit, its German twin. Internally, the both were utterly different, but from the outside, they were virtually identical.<\/p>\n

Let\u2019s call them Transit<\/h3>\n

Brian recalls that moment and says: \u201cBill Batty asked me \u2018why the different names for what are, in essence, identical products?<\/em>\u2019 he said it was a ridiculous idea. \u201cHe said \u2018we\u2019ve got a wonderful name synonymous with transport. Why are we not using it?\u2019 There and then, he decided that he wanted the \u2018Transit\u2019 name to be used in the UK.\u201d<\/p>\n

It proved a wise decision\u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Let\u2019s have a look at the prestigious history of Ford Transit through time when it celebrates its 50th birthday In the motoring history, the UK has had its fair share and in that, the biggest chunk, unquestionably, goes to none other than Ford Transit. Who would have thought that a simple van \u2013 which left […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":420,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[112,11,69,115,116,29],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fordtransitengines.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/418"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fordtransitengines.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fordtransitengines.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fordtransitengines.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fordtransitengines.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=418"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.fordtransitengines.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/418\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1349,"href":"https:\/\/www.fordtransitengines.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/418\/revisions\/1349"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fordtransitengines.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/420"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fordtransitengines.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=418"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fordtransitengines.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=418"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fordtransitengines.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=418"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}