{"id":1386,"date":"2010-04-30T15:49:28","date_gmt":"2010-04-30T15:49:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.vanrental.co.uk\/vanblog\/?p=1386"},"modified":"2010-04-30T15:49:28","modified_gmt":"2010-04-30T15:49:28","slug":"ford-transit-45-years-6-million-vans","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.vanrental.co.uk\/vanblog\/archives\/1386","title":{"rendered":"Ford Transit &#8211; 45 Years &#038; 6 Million Vans"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Ford celebrated two impressive milestones in its history today as the Ford Transit reached its 45th birthday and the 6 millionth Ford Transit rolled off the production lines.<\/p>\n<p>Six million Transits have now been sold worldwide &#8211; with the UK&#8217;s van drivers accounting for 2.1 million of them.\u00a0 Ford is celebrating these twin milestones with a new limited edition model, the Transit Sapphire. Only 1,150 Sapphires will be made and the generously-specified model will be available in short, medium and long-wheelbase versions. Goodies included as standard on the Sapphire model include air conditioning, cruise control, uprated stereo with bluetooth and auxiliary input for MP3 players and electric windows.<\/p>\n<p>Here&#8217;s a picture of the Sapphire alongside a mk1 Transit &#8211; how things have changed in 45 years:<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_1387\" style=\"width: 460px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-1387\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1387 \" title=\"ford-transit-45years-sm\" src=\"https:\/\/www.vanrental.co.uk\/vanblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/04\/ford-transit-45years-sm.jpg\" alt=\"2010 Ford Transit Sapphire &amp; a 1965 Mk1 Transit\" width=\"450\" height=\"300\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.vanrental.co.uk\/vanblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/04\/ford-transit-45years-sm.jpg 450w, https:\/\/www.vanrental.co.uk\/vanblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/04\/ford-transit-45years-sm-300x200.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 450px) 100vw, 450px\" \/><p id=\"caption-attachment-1387\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">A Mk1 Transit from 1965 alongside a 45th anniversary 2010 Transit Sapphire<\/p><\/div>\n<p>As it happens, the six millionth Transit came of the line at Ford&#8217;s Turkish plant &#8211; not its Southampton factory &#8211; but the first Sapphire did roll off the line in Southampton, with the keys going to the UK&#8217;s first ever Ford dealer, Hendy Group, which sells around 3,000 Transits every year and is celebrating its own centenary this year.<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_1388\" style=\"width: 460px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-1388\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1388\" title=\"ford-transit-sapphire-sm\" src=\"https:\/\/www.vanrental.co.uk\/vanblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/04\/ford-transit-sapphire-sm.jpg\" alt=\"Hendy Group MD Paul Hendy collecting the keys of his 45th anniversary Transit Sapphire\" width=\"450\" height=\"299\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.vanrental.co.uk\/vanblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/04\/ford-transit-sapphire-sm.jpg 450w, https:\/\/www.vanrental.co.uk\/vanblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/04\/ford-transit-sapphire-sm-300x199.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 450px) 100vw, 450px\" \/><p id=\"caption-attachment-1388\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Hendy Group MD Paul Hendy collecting the keys of his 45th anniversary Transit Sapphire<\/p><\/div>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\">\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Ford Transit celebrated two impressive birthdays on the 30th April 2010 &#8211; 45 years of age and 6 million vans produced. To mark the event, Ford launched a limited edition Transit Sapphire model.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[8],"tags":[796,123,49,584,795,534],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vanrental.co.uk\/vanblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1386"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vanrental.co.uk\/vanblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vanrental.co.uk\/vanblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vanrental.co.uk\/vanblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vanrental.co.uk\/vanblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1386"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.vanrental.co.uk\/vanblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1386\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vanrental.co.uk\/vanblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1386"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vanrental.co.uk\/vanblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1386"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vanrental.co.uk\/vanblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1386"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}