Mk 1 Transit
Britains Most Wanted!
Ford GB brought their MK1 Transit to the SGMW heritage day. To say it went down well with PR’s and members alike is no understatement. It won PR vehicle of the day.
I was fortunate to take it for a jolly around The New Forres’t. I was not however armed with shooters nor did l wear stockings over my head. As a lover of the humble van, I was keen to see what the fuss was all about. It’s reported that the Transit was a revolution in the commercial world with the good fruit and veg man and the bad bank robber.
Out and About.
Originally Ford forgot to give you a side cargo door as standard but they did give you sliding doors for you and your passengers. This made it all the more fun to drive, especially on the hot day we were given.
We tend to take doors for granted. Overrated items. And you’d be right to feel that way until you have driven a MK1 Transit with the doors open. Add to this that the van is old enough not to come with seat belts, and it soon adds up to a bucket list tickof driving by the seat of your pants.
Part of you hopes that you won’t fall out of the thing at any given speed. The other part wonders if you would survive falling out. The speed limit of the New Forrest is 40mph. In a MK 1 Transit with open doors, that is quite enough thank you very much!
Under the Bonnet
Look under the bonnet and you’ll find a single circuit braking system mated to drums all round. For something so tiny in overall dimensions, there is a smooth 1.7 litre Essex V4 engine. It made about 73bhp and gave the clutch assembly 135Nm of torque. These were good figures for a van in 65.
You also got a really accessible alternator. Quite possibly a first for the van market. They don’t mount them like this anymore.
You’ll also notice the steering column. It runs right down to a steering box that sits inches away from the bumper. Now you realise why you don’t need seat belts. In the event of a frontal collision, that is all coming right at you. And it will impale you into the seat. Safety first!
The steering gets more interesting as you pilot by the seat of your pants. You are constantly correcting the steering. It looks as dramatic as driving in a 70’s Hollywood blockbuster, but this is the real deal. And when you do need to apply some steering lock for a corner, you hope it all comes together.
Ford UK have shod their Transit with some fancy rubber. The Pirelli radials doing a great job in keeping it on the road. It handles far better than you feel it should. However, as vague as the steering can be, once it grips, it holds on. And holding on I mean, it loads up quite nicely.
Tough Nuts with Balls of Steel.
It’s a van that differentiated the boys from the men and by men, I mean those burly bad chaps who were driving about town getting ready to commit crime and rob banks. It takes a man to drive this thing. It can be quite thuggish. It’s V4 engine, willing as it is, needs balls of steel to get any performance from it. And this is probably why security drivers were so awful at avoiding capture in Dempsey and Makepeace. It couldn’t get out of its own way if it tried.
Ok, that’s all a bit harsh on what was to become the greatest mover of cargo and people of the 60’s and beyond. The Transit set new standards in many areas of the van market. As a result, in 1972, Scotland Yard reported that 95% of Transits were used in all bank heists. Van makers sat up and listened. They wanted some of this action, albeit, minus the criminal association. The Transit drove like a car of the time (sort of) but more importantly, had the performance of a car and could carry over a ton of stolen and not stolen goods. This was a van that could outmanoeuvre the Fuzz.
In writing this, I realise that the contradictory of terms regarding Dempsey and Makepeace. The Sweeny. The Professionals and any other 70’s and 80’s TV show that had any dimwitted security driver getting captured.
It wasn’t without its problems. Unlike cars, vans at the time were ill-equipped. Despite the Custom badges on the wings, this MK1 is more basic than a garden air raid shelter with a single chair. The Custom did have a fabric headlining but as far as luxuries could be seen, I was still looking for them.
A major selling point for the Transit would have been the ashtray. The vast expanse of dashboard was broken up by an ashtray bigger than today’s glove boxes of righthand drive Citroën and Peugeot models. Smoking was seriously cool in the 70’s and Ford made sure the Transit driver had an ashtray that could pack about 80 Rothmans dog ends before they needed to use the floor. Or flick them out of the open doors.
And that’s when you realise why they had sliding doors. The ashtray wasn’t big enough!