Ford sold a million Mustangs in one year back in 1965. That was whole lot of cars back then, but since then it’s been harder and harder to hit the seven-figures production number, let alone hitting it with a commercial vehicle. Since the fourth-gen Transit was introduced in 2013 and production at the Kansas City Assembly plant in Claycomo, Missouri, FoMoCo has shifted a million vans just here in the North American market. Impressive.
The millionth Kansas City Transit was the silver high-roof long-wheelbase rear-wheel drive model shown above. There’s no indication as to whether it’s an Ecoboost-powered low-key Supervan or not, but either way, it’s a pretty cool machine. I wonder if Ford is telling the buyer whether their new machine is the millionth or not. That would be a pretty neat talking point for your van, don’t you think?
Obviously this 1,000,000 number is pretty arbitrary, as it doesn’t take into account the number of Transits (Tourneos or T-series in other markets) built in Turkey, Russia, or China. It also doesn’t account for the millions of Transits Ford sold in other markets across the prior three generations dating back to 1965, or the Taunus Transit from 1953. And that’s to say nothing of the extremely popular Transit Connect or the not-sold-here mid-sized Transit Custom.
If Ford can sell a million vans to Americans in just seven years, just imagine how many units the blue oval is selling worldwide. These things are everywhere in Europe and Asia. Maybe Ford is the primary source of Van Time in the world. Who would have guessed that?
Vans are awesome machines that deserve more credit. I just bought a Ford van, pre-Transit, and it’s pretty great. I’ll tell you all more about it next week. In the meantime, praise the van.
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