When I first saw this photo posted at the Cohort by Simon White, I did a double take: Is that a toy, or for real?
Well, it’s quite real, meaning not a toy. But it sure does evoke a nice scale model. Needless to say, this is a vintage rig; probably from the 70s, or about as old as my Chinook. The mark 1 Transit was built from 1965 through 1978. It’s identifiable as a diesel because of its extended nose.
The original Transit was designed to use Ford’s ultra-short V4 engines, but the inline Perkins or later “York” Ford diesel engines wouldn’t fit, so an extend nose was fitted. That longer nose was also used on the Australian Transits to accommodate their Falcon inline six. And it was also used to house the Essex 3.0 V6 used in some “high performance” police vans and ambulances. The hot rod of vans.
I’m not sure that thing’s long enough for my lanky 6’3″ body to lay down in… 😀
The wheelbase is 106″, and the length of the cab is about 77″. The load length of the normal van is almost 88″, and this has a longer overhang. Should be ‘enough’ space, but not lavish.
I’m sensing that today must be Van Day at CC. 🙂
There’s a full width bed over the top of the cab and the table/chairs fold into a double bed. They’re actually very well laid out. With a York diesel in it though she’s gonna be sedate to say the least- assuming you can get it started.
Back in 1973 I drove a Transit with a York diesel for a tyre service company. It could almost do 55 mph – downhill,
I once saw 48mph in a Citroen H diesel – downhill on the motorway and knocked out of gear.
Love the long, winter shadows, and low but bright sun picking out just some of the tree branches. The shade of blue is classic for one of those old Trannys too.
You’re right about the 3.0 V6 versions, they went Iike stink. You just couldn’t keep fuel in them!
To me, that’s the classic size and shape of camper van that I grew up with in the UK. Much as the new ones look bloated and heavy, I’m sure I would much rather spend time in them.
I drove a rental transit today; a diesel. Going up a long hill it put up an “engine malfunction” message and turned off the turbo – from then on it was certainly no hot rod.
Many moons ago, I drove a big-nose Transit as a delivery driver. It had been a TipTop bakery van about the size of the camper shown here, albeit with dually rears; there seemed to be about 50,000 of them in Melbourne in post-TipTop use. Lord it was tough. The bakery drivers were notorious for speed and daring, and I wasn’t about to ruin their reputation even with just chocolates on board. “Mine” was on LPG and with the 1960-style 3.3 litre Falcon six and three speed, it was a low-geared rocket. Turns out you can run those old motors at 5,000rpm pretty much indefinitely. The facelifted ones later could even be had with the 4.1 litre alloy cross-flow six, (presumably ensuring bread that was all-but hot on delivery), and which I’d sure prefer to a 40bhp diesel motivating my camper. I prefer to get to my destination within the calendar year in which I left home.
Long nose was also used on the Falcon six powered Transits, the diffs were too low geared and the cure was to fit a MK3 Ford Zephyr diff head which gave them Highway gearing the same problem the Holden powered Bedford CF faced and on those you fit a Vauxhall Velox or Cresta diff head very common swaps back in the day in NZ.
Keeping alive the great British tradition of ‘taking everything including the garden shed’ on holiday!!
Funny, I had just watched a BBC film about the Transit on YouTube last night. Must be the CC effect.
In 1970 I was entrusted with a nearly new SWB Transit with the larger 2 litre V4 and a rare autobox. I had very little experience of self-shifting gears so it was a learning curve. There was a very heavy duty selector sticking out of the dashboard – I think I only ever used drive and park.
There was an occasional stint with a rental LWB manual – they had so much rear overhang that the tail could wag the dog if you were going quickly ( 70+ through motorway curves) with a heavy load of steel bars on board.