{"id":296,"date":"2008-10-17T12:00:30","date_gmt":"2008-10-17T12:00:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.vanrental.co.uk\/vanblog\/?p=296"},"modified":"2011-04-19T14:48:59","modified_gmt":"2011-04-19T14:48:59","slug":"friday-fun-the-ford-transit-supervan","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.vanrental.co.uk\/vanblog\/archives\/296","title":{"rendered":"Friday Fun: The Ford Transit Supervan"},"content":{"rendered":"

There is no doubt that the latest diesel-powered Ford Transits are respectably brisk for vans – but they aren’t really<\/strong><\/em> fast, are they?<\/p>\n

Not even the desirable Ford Transit Sportvan can lay claim to true high performance credentials, despite its GT40-style go faster stripes.<\/p>\n

Perhaps that’s why no fewer than three Ford Transit Supervans have been built over the years, starting with the Supervan 1 in 1971:<\/p>\n

\n
\n
\"Ford<\/a><\/dt>\n
Ford Transit Supervan 1 (Copyright\u00a0 www.nsva.co.uk)<\/dd>\n<\/dl>\n<\/div>\n

The Supervan 1 was powered by a rip-snorting 400bhp V8 engine as used in Ford’s victorious GT40 Le Mans cars. It did 68mph in first gear and was good for 196mph in fifth.<\/p>\n

For a time the Supervan 1 reigned supreme – but the launch of the Mk2 Transit meant that the time was ripe for a successor – the Supervan 2, which was unveiled at the Donington Truck Grand Prix in 1984:<\/p>\n

\"Supervan<\/a><\/p>\n

The Supervan 2 was powered by a long-stroke version of Ford-Cosworth’s DFV Formula 1 engine and was later clocked at 174mph at Silverstone. What more can I say?<\/p>\n

Time took its toll on the Supervan 2 and ten years later the Supervan 3 was born. Although technically a complete rebuild of the Supervan 2, it was virtually a new van and used the then-new Ford Transit Mk3 body shape:<\/p>\n

\"Super<\/a><\/p>\n

The Supervan 3 remains in service today and has proved a highly-effective publicity tool over the years. It has an estimated top speed of 150mph and now forms part of the Ford Heritage Vehicle Collection.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Ford Transit Supervans are perhaps the ultimate high performance vans. It’s unlikely we will ever see another near-200mph panel van – so stop by, drool over the pictures and pay homage to the god of the White Van Man.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[8],"tags":[427,49,426,428,429,430],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vanrental.co.uk\/vanblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/296"}],"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=296"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.vanrental.co.uk\/vanblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/296\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1830,"href":"https:\/\/www.vanrental.co.uk\/vanblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/296\/revisions\/1830"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vanrental.co.uk\/vanblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=296"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vanrental.co.uk\/vanblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=296"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vanrental.co.uk\/vanblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=296"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}