Full-Size Ford Transit Van Confirmed for U.S., May Be Called T-250, T-450, and T-550

Full-Size Ford Transit Van Confirmed for U.S., May Be Called T-250, T-450, and T-550:

Businessfolk and van fans speculated for months, and a press release issued today by the UAW finally confirms that the full-size Transit van is coming to the U.S. The van will be “in-sourced” to the U.S. from Europe, meaning that Ford will move a portion of Transit production—it will continue to be built overseas as well—to a Ford factory in the States. According to the UAW, the Transit will be assembled at Ford’s Kansas City facility, which presently builds the F-150 and outgoing Escape. The new 2013 Escape will be built in Louisville, Kentucky, freeing up capacity in Missouri starting next year; factoring in retooling time, we’d expect to see American-built Transits rolling off the line by 2013.

We have also learned that Ford filed trademark applications for T-250, T-450, and T-550 this past week, a strong indication that these will be the names used for the Transit. Just as Ford dropped the old Econoline name from its current mega-van in favor of “E-series” a few years ago, we suspect the new Transit will wind up being called the T-series. This will also help avoid any confusion with the smaller, car-based Ford Transit Connect in Ford’s commercial-vehicle lineup. The trademark application describes the use of the monikers as being for ”motor vehicles, namely, vans and cutaway van chassis, and their structural parts; exterior insignia badges for motor vehicles.”

For its part, Ford itself isn’t yet ready to fully confirm that the Transit is coming to America. A spokesperson tells us that the E-series and Transit will be part of the company’s “global vehicle-platform approach,” the same philosophy that spawned global versions of the Focus and Fiesta. The spokesman added that Ford “fully recognizes that today’s E-Series customers in North America have differing needs from Transit buyers in Europe, Asia, and other markets.” We take that to signal some changes to the Transit for U.S. sale; you may recall that the Fiesta was similarly tweaked.

So how long until we get a Transit Sportvan like the one pictured above? A diesel-powered, manual-transmission van certainly is in the pantheon of coolest vehicles ever.

Source : Googler Reader