Ford Retires Its Thankless Small SUV Alternative, the Transit Connect Van

Ford produces a vehicle that’s perfect fit for the daily lives of most Americans. A small vehicle it may be, it would haul as much as any small SUV without being overly tall and less aerodynamic. It worked well for small commercial jobbers and even recreationally for those looking to camp without getting too far away from civilization. Yet sadly, Ford has officially announced an end to the U.S.-market Transit Connect.

Silly eulogy aside, it is rather sad that the Transit Connect is among the small vans we’ve lost in recent years. It was hinted at, as Automotive News points out, and there were plans to make a new model on the same platform as the Maverick and Bronco Sport and even assembled in the same Mexican plant. Those plans were scrapped last year and all Transit Connects will come from Valencia, Spain until the end of 2023. It joins other small vans in the U.S. that have died, but continue to live on in Europe like the Ram ProMaster City, the Chevrolet City Express, and the Nissan NV200.

Ford gave its official reasoning for ending the Transit Connect with excuses of reducing global manufacturing costs and complexity along with “decreased demand for the compact van segment.” A segment you probably didn’t even realize existed because Ford sure as hell didn’t advertise it to anyone. In fact, the entire van segment is woefully under advertised; commercial van sales fell 11 percent on the whole from the first three quarters of 2021 to the first three of 2022, with the Transit being the best seller, itself suffering a 13 percent sales decline in that period, according to CarSalesBase.com.

Commercial trucks and SUVs also have higher profit margins, so most dealers don’t bother selling their customers on anything else. Now, we must say goodbye to the Ford Transit Connect, we hardly knew ye.

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