Van glorious ... the Ford Transit. Photograph: Tom Jenkins
Building and decorating. Delivering parcels. Up-and-coming rock bands on tour. Moving home. Policing the nation. The legendary gear-crashing, pavement mounting, tailgating antics of "white van man" . . . it's hard to imagine the British roadscape without the Ford Transit.
Roads across Europe, and now China, too, are also the tarmaced playing fields of this all but ubiquitous van, originally built at a former second world war fighter aircraft factory [Hawker Hurricanes] at Langley, near Slough in Berkshire. They have been mass-produced ever since in a huge variety of forms from basic pick-up trucks to "executive" minibuses in factories in England, Belgium, Germany, Turkey and China.
The Transit made its debut in October 1965. The product of a design and engineering collaboration between Ford of Britain and Ford of Germany, it changed the image, and performance of commonplace delivery vans overnight. With its striking US-style good looks, its car-like comfort and performance and sheer versatility, it was a giant leap forward for van drivers used to wobbling along in narrow, noisy Ford Thames or rival machines that seemed to chug along in a world somehow forever rooted in the imagery of Ealing and Boulting Brothers comedies.
Many of us must have hired, if not owned, a Transit at some point over the past 42 years, most often to move home. And, most of us will have been struck by how easy these vans are to drive. Sitting high up with a commanding view over the traffic ahead at controls that are as light and responsive of those of many saloon cars, they have always seemed friendly vehicles, although not perhaps in the ape-like clutches of "white van man", a breed of driver which clearly revels in the fact that a top-of-the-range 2007 Transit can top 95mph, with brisk acceleration to match.
That said, these remain fine machines, long-lived, easy to maintain and simplicity itself to use and drive. The Transit has been given several facelifts over the years, most notably in 1986 when the current smoothly integrated "one box" style bodywork was unveiled. Since then, all-independent suspension, six-speed gears, a choice of front-wheel, rear-wheel and four-wheel drive, air-conditioning and a turbo-charged diesel engine shared with Jaguar's X-type saloon have all added lustre to Ford's popular workhorse.
Perhaps the van's greatest success is that its name has become all but generic. People talk of "Transits" when they mean a modern van.
And, for anyone feeling sore about Gordon Brown raising the road tax for 4x4 cars to £400, what about buying a Transit instead and kitting it out Range-Rover style? In fact I've seen quite a few like this already; the Transit has come a very long way from Langley and 1965.
