50 Years Later, Ford’s Transit Supervan Is Still Outrageous (Hagerty)
In April 1971, Ford wowed the motoring world by unveiling a Transit van at the U.K.’s Brands Hatch Circuit. A race track is not the typical venue for a compact van, but this was no typical Transit. The Essex V-4 normally found under the van’s short hood had been unceremoniously tossed aside; in its place sat, well, nothing. Instead, the van used a Gurney-Weslake-prepped 302 small-block Ford V-8 and a five-speed transaxle. Essentially a Ford GT40 draped in boxy van sheetmetal, it even shared the race car’s “bundle of snakes” exhaust headers and fantastic engine note — plus its 435 horsepower. The absurdity of the Supervan was matched only by its brilliance.
The idea to create a high-performance, mid-engine box-on-wheels was a novel way to advertise the practicality of the European-market van, which had already been on the market for five years in its current form. Doesn’t every bakery need a hot-rodded van to make sure that each loaf of bread gets delivered while it’s still fresh and hot?
According to this video, the “naught-to-60” time was seven seconds, meaning that the Supervan, if lined up against a modern minivan, would end up looking at a Honda Odyssey’s taillights — at least, initially. The Supervan would have made things close with a 14.5-second quarter-mile elapsed time, which is not bad at all for a small-block in the early ’70s.
