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Title: New Ford Transits (Mk8, Custom, etc)
Category: Vehicle Designs and Designations
Posted by: Thomas Young
On: 29/09/2013 01:21
Text: The appearance of several new Ford Transit Custom minibuses in the Stagecoach fleet in September has prompted me to look at the new Transit range with a view to deciding how they will be described on LTSV. The new range comprises four all-new models that will replace all existing Transit variants over the next year or so. Each model has a distinct yet related styling and can be summarised as follows:

Transit Courier - A new compact van, with just one standard size option
Transit Connect - The revised (and slightly enlarged) Connect comes in two lengths but now with just one height option
Transit Custom - This replaces the low-roof Transit van and comes in two lengths. It is slightly longer and narrower
Transit - This replaces the mid-height and high-roof Transit and comes with 2 wheelbases, 2 or 3 heights and 3 body lengths. The wheelbases are the same as the Mk7 Transits but the bodies on the new vans are longer, wider and taller

A nice photograph showing a line-up of all four models can be found at http://probuildermag.co.uk/news/all-new-ford-transit-courier.

Full specifications for the range (such as dimensions) do not seem to be available yet. However, based on what I have been able to find out, I intend to apply the following descriptions on LTSV:

Transit Courier - Will be described as 'Transit Courier'
Transit Connect - Will be described as 'Transit Connect Mk2' with either SWB or LWB
Transit Custom - Will be described as 'Transit Custom' with either SWB or MWB
Transit - Will be described as 'Transit Mk8' with either MWB, LWB or LWB EL and Low-Roof, Mid-Height or High-Roof

Note that the 'Mk8' designation is not official but appears to be widely used. The Mk8 is sometimes referred to as the 6th generation, since the broadly similar Mk3, Mk4 and Mk5 were sensibly grouped as the 3rd generation. My intention is that the longest Transit Custom and the shortest Transit will both be described as MWB since they have the same 3.3m wheelbase as the MWB Mk7 Transit (although they all have different body lengths). As such, there will not be a 'Transit Custom LWB' nor a 'Transit SWB'.

If the Transit Courier and Transit Custom models are significantly revised in the future, then 'Mk1' designators will be retrospectively applied to the initial designs.

Once some photographs and/or diagrams are available I will update the Ford Transit article on this site.

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