Originally Posted by
Highboosted
If Ford would bring the entire Transit line to the US, it would make sense. The Connect is the only one that does NOT make sense to offer in the US. The transit is the most popular vehicle of it's type in England (possibly the rest of Europe, not sure) for several good reasons, but the Connect makes as much sense in the US as Japanese ultra-compacts, there's just no need/demand, because there's already better options that fit the lifestyles and enviroments of the US. ....
And you've done market research to determine this? I've already seen a whole bunch of Transit Connects in service here in the Detroit area. There are a lot of small businesses that use Escapes and other small SUV's, and having something like the Connect with twice the cargo room with the same footprint and similar operating costs makes a LOT of sense to me. Let's compare notes in a couple years, but I think you're wrong on this.
Yes, the big Transit is a neat vehicle, but we have the Econoline, and once you put a gas engine in the Transit, I don't think it will have that many advantages in the US market. Aftermarket converters already make lots of ambulances, box trucks, etc. based on the Econoline and I don't think they're going to be enthusiastic about converting to the Transit. And the Transit will cost more money here.
How many Sprinter ambulances have you seen in the US so far? I've seen exactly...zero. But every day I'll see at least 10 Econoline ambulances.
And most US Focuses in our area were built in the Wayne, Michigan plant about 20 miles from my house, same place as my wife's old '86 Escort GT.
George