What is your idea of a classic vehicle a Rolls Royce a ford Mustang

As you go through the years of the Transit there are 1,000s of body types these pages are online to give ad idea of the diversity of transit van that was on the roads during this period

Even though the official date for the Transits birth, as far as the public was concerned, was 09/10/65 in England and in Germany 9/12/65 by this time there were already hundreds of Transits in storage at Langley and all across Europe as the van had already been in production since august 9th . At this time if you were lucky enough to be a van buying member of the public then you had the opportunity to buy the revolutionary new Ford Transit. Within one month Ford had orders for the new van totalling £3.6 million. Everyone has heard the stories about the police having to update their cars so they had vehicles fast enough to keep up with this ground breaking van. Who could have known that the name Transit would become this famous? if you try and buy a van today 40 years later the salesman still bases his sales arguments on it drives like a Transit, holds more than a Transit and safer than a Transit. why is this comparison used ? its simple really.... It is the best van and has been since it was first produced.

It has always been synonymous with the small commercial vehicle market; As we all know beans are associated with Heinz, cornflakes are associated with Kellogg's then Transit is associated with the van. It has become the benchmark for all the commercial vehicle markets and for millions of people.

My first memories of the Transit are of speeding around London at the age of 15 delivering news papers to shops after school in 1965 and throwing them out to the news paper sellers at Swiss Cottage and other under ground stations while still moving. We would remove the passenger side door and seat to make it easier to throw out the papers. There were no computers and only a few people had access to a TV so the papers getting to the stations on time was a must.

Then in 1967 I moved with my family to West Drayton a few miles down the road from the Langley plant and the next thing I knew I was working in the Transit plant on the production line making a van that would become a very important part of my life.

When I left Ford I drove my MK1 Transit to Spain and spent over a year living in it while working on a farm and in bars. In the 1970's you could do that sort of stuff, I had an amazing time and it was whilst there I got my first Transit model.

I have taken these over the years along with some Ford press Picture's, I just have to stop and catch them on film.

Sheffield 2001 Fords MK1 at a show in a garage to launch the new vans I attended with some of the collection.

Walthamstow councils vans in 1997 tried to by them but the guy just let them rust away.

Below are the Ford Transits for sale in 1998 at Malvern van auctions loads of bits missing off these famous vans by this time. they spent weeks on TV news programs they were used in the 1980s as forward control vehicles in the minors strikes 3 of them were for sale at this time.