Speaking to Transport News Brief at the CV Show, Barb Samardzich, vice president of product development, and Phil Hollins, fleet director for Ford of Britain talked about the importance of the new models, which will create a four-strong CV range, and are joined at the CV Show by a new high-roof option for the Transit Custom and a two-tonne Transit, which will arrive in spring next year.
The new products will help to hit the doubling in Transit volumes, with strong growth in developing markets making a significant contribution to this. And it will also mean increased sales in the more developed UK market without the temptation to chase rental volume.
‘Hollins said: The UK is a mature market, but if you think about Transit Courier it’s a new product in a new segment that we don’t currently compete in.
‘Custom and Transit consolidate, while Connect will significantly improve the light van range. Courier is a new product that’s not going to pull from any other existing range and the high roof Transit gets added to production in September.’
And Barb Samardzich also has hopes for a possible improvement in the UK’s general economic situation – as indicated by an increase in UK LCV registrations in the year to date, bucking trends in the rest of Europe.
‘If we look at some of the signs right now, maybe we’re at the trough. Perhaps we can now move on to recovery here in Europe from there,’ he said.
‘Commercial vehicles lead into the trough and they lead out of the trough – they really are the key economic indicator.’
Ford also spoke about its move to provide greater support for its CV customers.
Hollins said: ‘We are in the process of establishing a Transit Centre network, which will go live next year. One of the key promises on aftersales for that is Transit24 which is all about minimising downtime for fleet operators.
‘They drop their vehicle off today and it will be back on the road tomorrow. It’s just launched, but it will really come to life when we get our Transit Centre network in place.
‘It’s an evolution of our offering, really, to support all of our great new product.’
Indicative residual values for this new product will arrive in May and are expected to be up 9-10%, with Ford having used its experience in working with standard setters and fleets on resale values for the Transit Custom, which saw a 10.5% uplift as a result.
‘The response was particularly positive with Connect, a significant move from where we are today,’ said Hollins.
‘They haven’t declared their hand yet, but we’re pretty confident that we will have a residual uplift which will put us in a very competitive position.’