Van Wilder
Fast Ford|April 2017

The next time a Transit Connect pulls up alongside you at the lights, don’t assume you’re about to take an easy victory in the Traffi c Light Grand Prix. Because if it’s this one, you’re about to have your backside handed to you in the most surprising way…

Dan Bevis 
Van Wilder

Backbone of Britain’. That’s how Ford once marketed the Transit, and it was an entirely appropriate observation. Perhaps you drive one every day for work; if not, someone on your street probably does. And you’ll almost certainly have come into contact with one over the last few days – a Transit might have made a delivery to your office, or brought a parcel to your house, or helped you move home, or any number of other van-based activities. They’re so interwoven in the fabric of everyday British life that we often don’t give them a second glance. And sure, there are other vans out there, your Sprinters and Crafters and what-have you, but the Transit will always be the king of the genre: the original van that was designed to behave like a car, way back in 1965. It’s a cultural icon.

Naturally the fact that we often don’t give these helpful vehicles a second glance means that, were somebody to do something a bit sneaky with one, it’d totally fly under the radar. And that, you see, is exactly what’s happened here – Nigel Howgego’s Transit Connect may look like your local plumber’s urban runabout, but there’s something mischievous hiding beneath the surface.

So how’s this for a thought process? The Transit Connect was designed to replace the Escort- and Fiesta-based vans in Ford’s line-up, and being based on the international Focus platform it doesn’t actually share all that much with the bigger Transit – so why not turn it into a kind of covert hot hatch? That’s effectively what Nigel’s set out to achieve here although, as you’ll soon discover, he got a little bit carried away.

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Esta historia es de la edición April 2017 de Fast Ford.

Comience su prueba gratuita de Magzter GOLD de 7 días para acceder a miles de historias premium seleccionadas y a más de 9,000 revistas y periódicos.

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