{"id":5243,"date":"2013-09-10T16:52:48","date_gmt":"2013-09-10T16:52:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.vanrental.co.uk\/vanblog\/?p=5243"},"modified":"2013-09-10T16:52:48","modified_gmt":"2013-09-10T16:52:48","slug":"new-ford-transit-connect-is-international-van-of-the-year-2014","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.vanrental.co.uk\/vanblog\/archives\/5243","title":{"rendered":"New Ford Transit Connect Is ‘International Van Of The Year 2014’"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Ford

The new Ford Transit Connect is International Van of the Year 2014<\/p><\/div>\n

Having bagged the International Van of the Year trophy in 2001 (Transit), 2003 (Transit Connect), 2007 (Transit) and 2013 (Transit Custom)<\/a>, Ford has made it five by winning the International Van of the Year 2014 award at the COMTRANS commercial vehicle exhibition in Moscow.<\/p>\n

If the new Transit Connect<\/a> is anything like as good as the Transit Custom — and we can safely assume it is — then the award isn’t really surprising.<\/p>\n

Ford has consistently upped the ante with its small and medium vans over the last decade, and I have high expectations that next year’s full-size 2-tonne Transit model will take the fight to the Sprinter in the same way.<\/p>\n

A few interesting statistics for van award followers;\u00a0Ford is first single manufacturer to win the award for two years in a row, and its fifth award gives it the joint record for the most number of wins.<\/p>\n

A jury of 24 journalists awards Transit Connect 130 points from a maximum possible 163, placing it ahead of the Mercedes-Benz Sprinter and Renault Kangoo. The judges singled out the Transit Connect’s fuel economy, design, driveability, load-carrying and safety for praise, and\u00a0Pieter Wieman, chairman of the \u201cInternational Van of the Year\u201d jury, said:<\/p>\n

\u201cFord has succeeded in building a light van with a strong accent on economics \u2013 the vehicle is a good answer to the needs of small operators as well as big fleets to reduce the cost of transport of goods.\u00a0The loading space offers several innovative aspects, such as load-through hatch in the bulkhead, fold-up front passenger seat and a sliding side door in the long-wheelbase model which enables a Europallet to be loaded.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The new Transit Connect is also the first van in its class to offer features such as Active City Stop, which helps to prevent rear-end shunts in heavy traffic conditions — a common type of collision.<\/p>\n

The all-new Transit Connect is now available to order for delivery in late 2013.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The new Ford Transit Connect has won the International Van of the Year 2014 award, making it the fifth time Ford has won this award.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[8],"tags":[1770,123,1771],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vanrental.co.uk\/vanblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5243"}],"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=5243"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.vanrental.co.uk\/vanblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5243\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5246,"href":"https:\/\/www.vanrental.co.uk\/vanblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5243\/revisions\/5246"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vanrental.co.uk\/vanblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5243"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vanrental.co.uk\/vanblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5243"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vanrental.co.uk\/vanblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5243"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}