Minivans may be an endangered species, but Ford commercial vans just hit record sales

Minivans are practically disappearing from the automotive landscape and dropping to a minimum in automaker lineups, having lost most of their past appeal to the marketplace in favor of crossovers and SUVs. But for commercial vans, those utilitarian staples of plumbers, electricians, cable installers, delivery fleets, and innumerable other business operators who depend on their vehicles every day to help them get things done, it’s a different story. Hardcore work vans show no sign that they’re going anywhere. The record-setting sales Ford reported this week of Ford commercial vans, including the stalwart Ford Transit Van, are a case in point.

In the third quarter alone, Ford says they sold more than 65,000 vehicles from their commercial van lineup. That’s an increase of 21 percent compared to the third quarter of 2018, and it’s an impressive number on the face of it considering that some automotive models for the consumer market don’t sell that many units over multiple generations of production life. The stalwart Transit Van led the Ford commercial vans pack in the third quarter of 2019, with sales up 25 percent from the same quarter last year.

Ford’s Transit Van is what one might call a “quiet classic” of the commercial van world. With its humble profile, blend-into-the-landscape design and paint schemes, and ubiquity of use in the daily grind of business, the Ford Transit Van has been a continuous presence since 1965, selling more than 8 million units as of 2015, according to Parker’s Van News. It’s also a popular platform for RV or “camper van” conversions.

Posting a 49 percent increase over the same quarter last year was the Ford Transit Connect, a compact van available in both cargo and passenger-wagon formats. Beginning its life as a vehicle for the European market, the Transit Connect was originally built in Turkey as a replacement for previous passenger vans built on European Ford Escort and Ford Fiesta platforms. The current generation, which received a facelift in 2019, undergoes final assembly at Valencia Body & Assembly in Valencia, Spain, according to Ford.

Commercial vans are also a long-time success story for GM. For example, sales of the Chevrolet Express van, in production since 1995, are also trending upward for 2019, with more than 60,000 units sold in the U.S. market alone as of the end of the third quarter, based on data from CarSalesBase.

For FCA, CarSalesBase figures indicate that RAM Promaster Van U.S. sales are up 31 percent over last year as of June.