Ford's new Tourneo Connect is a European passenger van that Americans will soon see in the form of the next-generation Ford Transit Connect.
Ford has big global plans for its next-generation vans, both the big Transit model and the smaller Transit Connect, giving the world a first look during a preview in Amsterdam this morning.
The Transit Connect, already on sale in the U.S., will get a complete makeover next year, Ford announced. So will the bigger Transit – which is scheduled to make the jump from Europe to the U.S., late next year, replacing Ford’s long-in-the-tooth E-Series van.
Currently, the Transit Connect available in the U.S. market targets commercial users, from plumbers to caterers. But when the new version of the van makes its debut as a 2014 model, a new passenger version will be added and sold in the U.S. as the Transit Connect Wagon, Ford officials confirmed.
The next-generation Transit Connect will reach the U.S. next year, replacing the aged Ford E-Series van.
The broad Transit brand is one of Ford’s biggest lines in Europe. The big van alone generated 180,000 sales a year last year and Ford expected that to surge to 300,000 by 2016. The maker is equally optimistic about its prospects in the U.S.
Though the E-Series van is, by a long-shot, the oldest model in the Ford line-up it continues to dominate its segment with a 46% share for the passenger version – and 50% with commercial models. Sales for the first eight months of this year are up 5%, to 84,990. For all of 2011, E-Series sales were 116,874 – itself an 8% increase. And the expectation, company officials stressed, is to actually grow the segment.
The Transit will launch in Europe in mid-2013 and in the U.S. soon afterwards. The American version will be produced at Ford’s Kansas City assembly plant.
In Europe, Ford has a wide variety of Transit models in Europe, including the big van, an all-new midsize van dubbed Transit Custom and the smaller Transit Connect.
The latter model made its jump to the U.S. market late in 2009, as a 2010 model, and has steadily gained momentum. Sales rose 16% last year, to 31,914. For the first eight months of 2012, meanwhile, Transit Connect sales in the States were up 12%, to 22,905.
As with the Transit model, the Transit Connect will be completely revised next year. Launch timing is the same as with the bigger van. The version sold in the U.S. will continue to be imported, though production of the 2014 model will shift from Turkey to Spain.
Meanwhile, Ford plans to add a passenger model to the U.S. line-up that it will call the Transit Connect Wagon. It will be part of the maker’s strategy of fleshing out a segment that used to be filled by now-abandoned minivans like the Windstar.
The Transit Connect Wagon will be slightly larger than Ford’s new C-Max “people-mover,” and will offer a more minivan-like rear sliding door.
During the company presentation in Amsterdam, Ford also revealed a new concept vehicle, dubbed Transit Courier, a new B-segment microvan that appears to be under development for Europe and possibly some other markets around the world. But the U.S. is unlikely to be on that list, Ford officials hinted.