Equipment

Ford Transit debuts year with sales record

July 8, 2015

Ford Transit is celebrating its first full year of U.S. production with a record-setting sales month, selling 12,134 units in June and leading Ford to the company’s best first half van sales performance since 1988, the company said. June is the eighth straight month that Transit has been the best-selling van in America, according to the company.“It has been a ‘van-tastic’ year for Transit,” said Yaroslav Hetman, brand manager for Transit Connect and E-Series. “The fact that Transit sales have grown every month since January 2015 demonstrates that customers have embraced Transit’s flexibility, efficiency and low cost of ownership. Recognizing that our customers count on Transit vans as the biggest tool they use to get their jobs done every day, we make Transit available with a best-in-class 58 configurations from the factory. Moreover, 11 of the top upfitters in the country have established facilities within 20 miles of our Kansas City Assembly Plant where Transit is manufactured. This makes it easy and convenient for customers to add racks, bins, service bodies and other necessary equipment — without having to ship their Transits to an offsite location.”Transit went on sale in the United States and Canada in June 2014. It replaced the E-Series, first sold in 1961 as Ford Econoline, which had been America’s best-selling van for 35 years, the company said, adding that in November 2014, Transit took over the title as America’s best-selling van.Transit is available as a full-size van, wagon, cutaway or chassis cab, with a choice of three roof heights, three wheelbases and three engines, including gas and diesel options. It features a unibody construction that makes use of boron steel to provide weight savings, improved torsional stiffness and long-term durability, according to the company. “When equipped with the 3.5-liter EcoBoost engine, 2015 Transit low- and medium-roof regular wheelbase wagons get up to 46% better fuel mileage than comparable E-Series vans with the 6.8-liter V10 premium gas engine,” the company said.During the first half of 2015, Ford sold a total of 109,783 vans — a 26% increase over 2014 and the company’s best first half van sales performance since 1988, the company said.