The new Ford Transit is now on sale, with first deliveries due later in the first half of this year.

The Ford Fiesta and Ford Focus are the UK’s two top-selling vehicles. The third, perhaps surprisingly, is a van, the Ford Transit.

The Transit has been the biggest selling commercial vehicle in the UK since its launch in 1965, and there are currently more than 700,000 Transit on the road in the UK, according to Ford — one in four of all the vans on the road.

The blue oval’s success doesn’t end there: in 2013, Ford sold 72,238 commercial vehicles in the UK, giving it a 20.9% market share.

Across Europe, patriotic preferences shape the market differently, but Ford’s share increased from 8.5% in 2012 to 9.2% last year, nevertheless, thanks in part to the success of its Ford Ranger, a model that only has one equal amongst European marques, the Volkswagen Amarok.

Ford’s big new van bet

Ford has taken the unusual and bold move of replacing its entire CV line-up in the space of 24 months. The process started last year, with the introduction of the the new Transit Custom and Fiesta Vans, while this year has already seen the launch of the new Transit Connect, which will shortly be followed by the full-size new Transit and a long-awaited replacement for a discontinued model, the Transit Courier.

The outgoing Transit was neither as big as the largest vans on the market, like the Sprinter and Ducato, nor quite as small as vans such as the Vito and VW Transporter. This unique size formula has worked well for many years, but Ford has decided to go mainstream with its revamped CV range, and the new Transit — referred to as the two-tonne model — will be a full-size large van, aimed squarely at the Sprinter, Ducato, Relay et al.

Filling the smaller space vacated by the outgoing Transit is the Transit Custom, which sold 41,500 units across Europe in its first year of production, and by all accounts is an extremely accomplished van.

Ford is taking a risk by changing a winning formula, but I suspect it will pay off, and if the new Transit is as good as early reviews suggest, it could increase the firm’s market share still further, as van operators for whom the old Transit wasn’t big enough will be able to meet their requirements with the new model, including van hire fleets, who may finally have a realistic alternative to the big Sprinter.