{"id":15135,"date":"2025-08-13T17:29:55","date_gmt":"2025-08-13T17:29:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ugandaupdatenews.com\/?p=15135"},"modified":"2025-08-13T17:30:03","modified_gmt":"2025-08-13T17:30:03","slug":"beloved-by-bands-and-bank-robbers-the-ford-transit-turns-60","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/prowebinhost.com\/anzu\/beloved-by-bands-and-bank-robbers-the-ford-transit-turns-60\/","title":{"rendered":"Beloved by bands and bank robbers, the Ford Transit turns 60"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Limbing into a 1965 Ford Transit is like stepping into a time capsule on wheels.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Forget your modern high-tech nicknacks like satnavs and touchscreens. All you get here is a steering wheel, a big chrome-lined speedometer dial and a chunky heater control. There isn’t even a radio.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Out on the road, it rattles and bangs and occasionally jumps out of gear.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Disconcertingly, there’s no seatbelt, the seat itself has an alarming tendency to move around, and the brakes don’t seem to do very much at all.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Beautiful as it is, it’s hard to imagine that this elderly machine was ever state of the art.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yet when the original Transit first rolled off the production line at Ford’s plant in Langley, Berkshire, on 9 August 1965, it was a revelation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

By the standards of the day, it was remarkably spacious, powerful and practical. It was comfortable, had sharp handling, and put existing vans such as the Morris J4 firmly in the shade.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sixty years later, the Transit has been redesigned many times, but the brand itself is still going strong. It remains a staple for many small businesses, even in an age when “white vans” are ten a penny, and the market is rife with competition.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It is the world’s best-selling van – and more than 13 million have been built so far.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“There are lots of iconic cars: the Morris Minor, the Mini, the Land Rover, the VW Beetle, but there’s only one iconic van, and that’s the Transit,” says Edmund King, president of the AA.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“It’s probably the only van that people really know”.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Erica<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Originally a collaboration between Ford’s engineers in the UK and Germany, and primarily aimed at the British and European markets, the Transit was designed to be as versatile as possible.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It rapidly became a staple for tradespeople, including builders, carpenters, electricians and delivery drivers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But it also appealed to others looking for spacious, cheap transport – including aspiring rock bands. It was almost a rite of passage. Among those who spent time on the road in one were Black Sabbath<\/a>, Led Zeppelin, The Damned, the Small Faces and Slade.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“It was the freedom to go where you want, when you want. Petrol was a lot cheaper than it is now,” says Peter Lee, founder of the Transit Van Club.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“I ended up in Spain, lived in one for 13 months as a hippy on a strawberry farm, then came back and started a business. Before you know it, I had 180 workers in 28 Transit vans driving around London.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Britain’s most wanted van <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Transit’s speed and loading space also appealed to people on the wrong side of the law.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 1972, so the story goes, a Metropolitan Police spokesman claimed Transits were being used in 95% of bank raids, adding that its speed and loading space meant it had become the perfect getaway vehicle. This, he commented drily, made it “Britain’s most wanted van”.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Meanwhile the stereotype of the bullying “white van man”,defined by Sunday Times reporter Jonathan Leake in 1997 as “a tattooed species, often with a cigarette in his mouth, who is prone to flashing his lights as he descends on his prey”, did not specifically target Transit drivers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But given how many of them were on the road by then, it is a fair bet they were implicated.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Editor:msserwanga@gmail.com<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Limbing into a 1965 Ford Transit is like stepping into a time capsule on wheels. Forget your modern high-tech nicknacks<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":15136,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[213],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-15135","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-automotive-industry"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/prowebinhost.com\/anzu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/d51fb4c0-7461-11f0-aa65-13a77a32934c.jpg.webp","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":12449,"url":"https:\/\/prowebinhost.com\/anzu\/namibia-mps-tour-kiira-vehicle-plant-to-learn-more-about-e-mobility-solutions-for-mass-transit-in-africa\/","url_meta":{"origin":15135,"position":0},"title":"Namibia MPs Tour Kiira Vehicle Plant To Learn More About E-Mobility Solutions For Mass Transit In Africa","author":"UgandaUpdate","date":"July 22, 2024","format":false,"excerpt":"By Our Reporters In Jinja The visiting Namibia Members of Parliament\u00a0 have toured the Kiira Vehicle Plant (KVP) in\u00a0 Jinja to benchmark in the latest E-mobility solutions for mass transport on the African continent . 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