The Ford Transit is a family of light commercial vehicles manufactured by the Ford Motor Company since 1965, primarily as a cargo van, but also available in other configurations including a large passenger van (marketed as the Ford Tourneo in some markets since 1995), cutaway van chassis, and a pickup truck. The vehicle is also known as the Ford T-Series (T-150, T-250, T-350), a nomenclature shared with Ford's other light commercial vehicles, the Ford F-Series trucks, and the Ford E-Series chassis. , 8 million Transit vans have been sold, making it the third best-selling van of all time and has been produced across four basic platform generations (debuting in 1965, 1986, 2000, and 2013 respectively), with various "facelift" versions of each.
The first product of the merged Ford of Europe, the Transit was originally marketed in Western Europe and Australia. By the end of the twentieth century, it was marketed nearly globally with the exception of North America until 2013 when it replaced the Ford E-Series van. Upon its introduction in North America, the Transit quickly became the best-selling van of any type in the United States, minivan sales included.
That mirrors the success the Transit has achieved in Europe, where it has been the best-selling light commercial vehicle for forty years, and in some countries the term "Transit" has passed into common usage as a generic trademark applying to any light commercial van in the Transit's size bracket.
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Predecessor of the British and German-built Transit, the first production Ford to wear the "Transit" badge was a van built in Ford's Cologne plant in Germany. It was introduced in 1953 as FK 1000 (carrying 1,000 kg) with a 1.2-litre inline-four engine from the contemporary Taunus. In 1955 the engine capacity was enlarged to 1.5 litres. From 1961, this vehicle was called the Ford Taunus Transit. Production of this model ceased in 1965.
On May 9, 1945, the day after the unconditional surrender of the German Wehrmacht in the Second World War, production at the German Ford-Werke AG in Cologne (Köln) resumed.