Ford’s unique wild van has been rebuilt from the bottom up because the countdown to the Transit’s sixtieth anniversary begins.
The SuperVan first appeared in 1971 as a promotional software for the then-six-year-old Transit, although little of the van’s mechanicals have been used, with its physique constructed atop the chassis from a mid-engined Cooper Monaco with the 4.7-litre V8 coronary heart from a GT40.
It turned heads when it broke cowl, and has lived on in a number of iterations all the way in which as much as the latest, all-electric SuperVan 4.2.
Greater than 50 years since its debut in 1971, the unique SuperVan has been rebuilt from minimal stays, utilizing unique elements, by an ex-Ford engineering apprentice.
Andy Browne launched into the restoration journey as a homage to pal Terry Drury, who was instrumental in creating the primary SuperVan.
“He (Mr Drury) constructed the unique van in three to 4 months, off the again of an orange Transit construct by Ford apprentices, who caught a seven-litre Ford Galaxie engine in it,” Mr Brown stated.
“Terry was well-known to Ford and, with the assistance of some spare GT40 components and funding from the Ford Truck gross sales division, it was the billboard of all billboards.”
When the SuperVan marketing campaign ended, Mr Drury’s workforce stripped all the things from the van, together with its drivetrain. The shell reportedly went by a number of totally different palms earlier than it was bought by Mr Browne in 1973, who picked it up for £500 (about £5300 now, or A$10,200).
“There was nothing; all it had was a shell and 4 wheels. Nothing else,” Mr Browne stated.
“Fortunately, I had entry to machine outlets so I might produce components, and bough a transaxle off Terry for one more £500. Again then, I used to be a Ford apprentice on 5 kilos per week.”
Mr Browne was then tasked with getting the van registered and insured, which turned out to be a prolonged and costly course of. By the Eighties life acquired in the way in which, and so he was pressured to promote it and transfer on.
By the point Ford revealed the SuperVan 2 in 1985, the unique van had already been by a number of house owners and its path was misplaced.
Mr Browne acquired a number of calls from strangers asking to substantiate if the van they’d discovered was the unique van. As he had completed many of the work himself, he says he knew what to search for when suspected SuperVans popped up.
A few years later and with more cash to spend, Mr Browne made the choice to pursue the SuperVan once more, this time pursuing the automobile in honour of his associates and colleagues which made the memorable automobile.
“Initially, I needed to construct a reproduction. Then at some point I acquired a name and someone stated to me they thought they knew the place the stays of SuperVan have been. I’ve misplaced rely, however this will need to have been at the least the 20th time, simply.
“I went to see these stays, ran my hand below the sills and knew that it was the van that I’d owned. It wasn’t even a van in any respect – only a ground pan and a little bit of bulkhead, and a few components of a chassis that had been minimize.”
As an alternative of constructing that duplicate, Mr Browne purchased the stays and set about rebuilding the SuperVan utilizing unique components.
With the restoration virtually full, it made its first look at Ford’s Transit Day celebrations within the UK, the place it was flanked by SuperVan 3 (an evolution of SuperVan 2) and SuperVan 4.2 – the primary time three generations of the promotional autos appeared collectively.
The Ford Transit celebrates its sixtieth birthday on August 9, 2025 – the day the primary instance rolled off the manufacturing line.
Transit examples from throughout the years have been placed on show at this yr’s Transit Day, which kicked off the countdown to the van’s precise anniversary.
MORE: A brain-rearranging trip within the electrical Ford SuperVan
