An other generation, the same execution. The previous and current Transit model, both working for the same building contractor, parked nearby the jobsite. They had a lot in common.
Like the 375 cm (147.6”) wheelbase, their height and a legal maximum GVM of 3,500 kg (7,716 lbs). Mr. Red is clearly the younger version of Mr. White.
Senior is powered by a 3.2 liter, inline-five turbodiesel (200 DIN-hp), whereas junior has a 2.0 liter, four-cylinder turbodiesel (130 DIN-hp) under its short hood. Dad can give his son a good run for his money, no doubt about that.
Full-size, building contractors’ panel vans are often equipped with some permanent scaffolding materials. It all comes with the job. Speaking of which, where are the flatbed trailers?
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Future Classic: 2015 Ford Transit 250 – A New Dawn For U-Haul by Jim Klein
Nice workhorses! I rented a flatbed (10foot bed) Transit from Home Depot a few weeks ago when I had to transport some 16foot lumber home from Lowe’s… (HD didn’t have the lumber and Lowe’s didn’t have the truck). Anyway, it was a fun little trip, these are quite good to drive.
That’s a nice one too, and the set-up looks oh so familiar. A chassis-cab with a flatbed, a full “headache rack” and dropsides.
Unfortunately lumber inventory is still pretty spotty around here, longer lengths in particular. I’ve had to check a number of stores to get the lumber I needed for projects over the last few months.
I have to wonder what the Lowe’s employees thought of the HD truck in their parking lot.
It is interesting that Lowes only does standard 1500 Silverados and nothing bigger. Fact is the parking lot is usually half full of 1/2 ton pickups. Sure many of them are not 8′ beds but still it seems to limit the market.
Meanwhile HD has these bigger trucks that can haul significantly more than the average truck in their parking lot.
Love me a Transit. The first time I ever drove one I had to three-point turn it in a tight lane in Edinburgh’s Old Town for a drop-off. Yes, it’s exactly as tight as you can imagine. Trial by fire!
I’m curious when the commercial vehicle shift away from diesel in Europe will come, if it happens relatively quickly Ford and FCA/Stellantis will have a leg up since they already put gasoline engines in their Euro-developed vans for the US market. If it takes longer the whole industry will probably move straight to electrification.
…”I’m curious when the commercial vehicle shift away from diesel in Europe will come”…
Depends on size, weight and task. Electric vans, buses and even (heavy) trucks/tractors are already available. Ditto CNG/LNG.
Example, the brand new Iveco S-Way (their top model) below runs on LNG.
Source: https://www.transport-online.nl/site/118861/nieuwe-iveco-s-way-np-op-lng-voor-melkweg-fritom/
They have certainly changed for the better since the first one I drove a 69 model with 1700cc V4 vibrator up front and zero discernable performance it ran it moved it had lots of space inside we moved a friend with it and gave it back to the rental company, modern Transits get aslong quite well even laden I see them quite often among the varied fleet of vans on the motorway and streets.
That specific engine was prone to running hot.
Neighbours had one of those Transits they turned into a camper, back around ’80. Both would have weighed well over 100kg, and that massively overbuilt bunk in the back. I can still hear that poor engine…..
The US is in a weird transition period for vans. Everyone but GM has moved to the European-derived vans. GM stays old-school, but folks who want frames and heavy-duty towing still love them.
I read an article the other day that talked about how home delivery has exploded because of the virus, and Amazon, et. al. simply can’t procure enough vans to do what they need to do. It doesn’t help that all van production stopped for a period during the early stages. I’m told there’s no such thing as a f/s commercial van on a dealer lot, because they have been purchased before the dealer even gets them.
I don’t understand why GM doesn’t just have both. Sure they argue that people want the old style vans. That’s fine, keep selling them then, but the hordes of Transits/ Sprinters/Promasters prove that’s not exclusively the case, if someone wants a high-roof van they aren’t going to look at GM. If someone wants something more modern or isn’t locked into the older style to reuse existing upfitments etc or whatever the reasoning is perhaps they’d consider a Euro-GM van.
GM had plenty of Euro-vans; compact, mid-size and FWD/RWD full-size . That is, until Opel-Vauxhall was sold to PSA.
While I can only base this off one data point, I suspect cost is why GM keeps building the old vans. Yes, cost for them but also selling cost.
You know where I work. Recently we were needing to replace a few vans. Out of curiosity I asked about the Transit vans in comparison to the GM vans, knowing GM would make the transition some day and it would be good to acclimate our employees now. Our bids being multi-award helps as times change.
Anyway, for a one-ton van, all else being as equal as possible, the GM van was around $5,000 cheaper than the Ford. If someone is buying multiple units, that $5k will add up quickly.
I’m not defending the GM vans. I’ve driven them and I’ve seen how they’ve aged. However, I suspect GM has identified a niche and with their having had a one-year wait for delivery (in the somewhat recent past) I suspect they are seeing the benefits.
Is it short-sighted? Perhaps.
Oh I don’t disagree with that (besides it seeming like perhaps GM is leaving close to $5000 on the table with every sale, especially if there is a one-year waiting list) It would seem to make sense to offer an option for those not wanting to consider the older vans anymore.
Yes it takes factory space and development dollars (but those dollars will be spent one day anyway if the old one does get replaced), and factory space seems like it would be possible to find too, they did recently rid themselves of Lordstown for example.
I don’t understand why GM doesn’t just have both.
That’s quite unrealistic. There’s no way there’s enough volume to properly support both. GM doesn’t have a Euro-style van to use here. Developing one from scratch just for the US is out of the question, in terms of economics.
They’re making very healthy profits on the ones they have now. Why ruin that? For what?
GM’s next new van will undoubtedly be a pure EV. Why develop a new IC van that’ll be obsolete all-too soon?
Well, they did already have both but on separate sides of the ocean, perhaps it’s simply a case of that ship having sailed (or sunk), this could have been done years ago. Ford did too and then brought the Transit over here and still produces and sells the cutaway E’s concurrently.
Perhaps they’d cannibalize some of their existing business, however it seems like much of that is people who like the old and want to keep with it. Sell the existing one as the Van Classic, not like GM hasn’t done that before with passenger cars while also rolling out the new.
GM could also have engineered a new Euro-Style Van to accept batteries from the get-go or eventually convert like both the Transit and Sprinter are doing now. I’d guess the ProMaster could do something similar as well if they were so inclined, with that extremely low floor it could be built up with a layer of batteries and would likely still be lower than the Transit is now.
Well, they did already have both but on separate sides of the ocean,
What did they have? The Opel Movano is just a rebadged Renault Master. And the smaller Opel Vivaro is a rebadged Renault Trafic/Jumpy.
Neither of those belonged to GM. They had zero vans in Europe, of their own.
Which of course explains why GM doesn’t don’t have a Euro-style van here. The NA market is too small to support the development and production of a new and unique van. It has to be a global product to be competitive, in terms of amortization. GM doesn’t have a global truck presence, unlike Ford and FCA.
One more thing to keep in mind: the only reason Ford didn’t sell its European ops is because of the vans, which are highly profitable there as here. Their European car ops are a constant money loser.
Trucks and vans are where the money is these days. Ford sees itself as being primarily a truck maker, and has enough global reach to do so. Their commercial truck profit margins are sky high. And the Transit is a key product, along with the Connect (more outside of the US).
GM is not a global truck manufacturer, and in fact, they’ve had to scramble to expand their truck line with a medium duty truck line because fleet buyers prefer to buy all their trucks through one channel. GM was at a big disadvantage there. And that’s why they have to keep offering their older vans, for their fleet buyers. The fleet business is a market something of its own.
When GM tried to sell a small van in the US they rebadged a Nissan.
Of course the reason that they even tried that was because of the fact that many fleets like a single brand across their entire range of trucks. So yes they need a van to help them move more Silverados and that certainly plays a part in their re-entry into conventional medium duty segment.
I think however GM’s full size vans are still a profit center with the plant running at maximum capacity using designs and tooling that was fully amortized years ago.
It makes no economic sense for GM to sell 2 vans, they just don’t have the volume in the US and they have none in Europe to justify the development of a new van. If they did go that route then they would have to kill the existing van to have any hope of recovering the development cost.
For Ford it makes sense to soldier the E-series Cutaway on since it is capable of a higher GVW than the Transit. So there is just the smallest overlap between the two. Ford also has a history of being the best selling full size van, so they have the volume in both the US and Europe.
If you look at Europe where vans are king you’ll see that many of them are rebadges because those mfgs have determined they need to partners to have the volume necessary to make them profitable.
So GM is doing just fine with what they have. Yeah it sounds bad that the Chevy is 5k less than the Ford, but if you look at the bigger picture their pricing isn’t low, just that Ford’s is that high. Plus development and tooling were full amortized long, long ago.
From my state’s 2020 bids.
Chevy 2500 $24,947
Ram 2500 $ $24,785
Note GM dropped the 1500 many years ago, to avoid CAFE so you could buy a Ram 1500 swb for $22,685.
Well in general the majority of vans are ordered to spec, not bought off the lot, so you don’t normally see a lot of vans on dealer’s lots, unless they specialize in fleet sales.
While the Pandemic has had its effects on supply and demand for vans the problem of Van availability has existed for quite a while. For example the cutoff to order a 2020 GM van was 3/5/2020.
Shortly after the pandemic started, until a month or so ago one of the local Mercedes dealers have been running ads “Having trouble finding the van your business needs? No problem we have then in stock and ready for immediate delivery”. Though when I looked at their inventory today it says all 114 units that are “in-stock” are located in Wilsonville OR, not Seattle.
Looking at the local Ford dealers show several Transits in stock so it seems that the inventory levels have stabilized.
I recently bought a new US Transit. Ordered in early July, delivered late September. COVID was perhaps a contributor to lead time, but high demand and priority for Amazon was also suggested as reasons. Certain options were in the “don’t bother if you want it built in 2020” category (power sliding door and dual view camera display), and the 4 cylinder diesel which was announced to replace the previous 5 cylinder was quietly dropped with none built. Anyway, among the various incentives was $500 cash back if you showed proof of ownership of any non-Ford vehicle. That went up to $1000 if you showed proof of ownership of a full-size GM van. “Competitive conquest” was the term used.
Amazon has been making Transit availability tight for some time now.
The non-profit I’m involved with has its warehouse right a couple of blocks away from the main distribution center for the Seattle area. I just happened to see groups of 14 Transits being delivered a number of times during fall 2020.