Greenlight 1:43 2015 Ford Transit: Police Utility Van

The Ford Transit, also known as the Ford T-Series in some markets, is a range of light commercial vehicles produced by Ford since 1965. Sold primarily as a cargo van, the Transit is also built as a passenger van (marketed as the Ford Tourneo since 1995), minibus, cutaway van chassis, and as a pickup truck. Over 8,000,000 Transit vans have been sold, making it the third best-selling van of all time and have been produced across four basic platform generations (debuting in 1965, 1986, 2000, and 2013 respectively), with various "facelift" versions of each.

The fourth-generation Transit was launched in January 2013 at the 2013 North American (Detroit) International Auto Show. In contrast to the previous generation developed in the United States (but never sold there), the fourth-generation Transit was co-designed by Ford of Europe and Ford in North America.

The introduction of the fourth generation marks a split of the Transit model line; the Ford Transit Custom, sized between the new Transit and the Transit Connect, succeeds the smaller versions of the previous generation Transit in Europe and is intended to compete against the Mercedes-Benz Vito/Viano and Volkswagen Transporter. The large new Transit, which is also available with rear- and four-wheel drive, serves as the replacement for the larger versions of the previous Transit, and competes with the Mercedes-Benz Sprinter and the Volkswagen Crafter, and in North America, with the Chevrolet Express. In the North American market, the Transit succeeded the long-running Econoline/E-Series which remained[when?] in production as cutaway and chassis cab. In this market, the Transit Custom is not available. Instead, the Transit is available in a low-roof version. Another difference between the European and American markets is that the North American Transits are always rear- or four-wheel drive.

While the front-wheel drive Transit was sold in Mexico from 2007 to 2013 (replacing the Freestar), the Transit was excluded from the United States and Canada (largely due to model overlap with the E-Series) from its 1965 introduction. As part of its development, Ford imported previous-generation examples of the Transit into the United States for evaluation purposes and durability testing.