Ford Transit Custom review

Naturally you’d expect it to drive like a pudding but the Transit is a machine that delights in confounding your expectations. It has independent suspension at all four corners, accurate, nicely geared and linear steering and, though it seems hard to believe, this van is 50kg lighter than a BMW M3 Touring. It’s no sports car, but it is never less than pleasant to drive and even fun in an incongruous kind of way when pushing on with nothing in the back. Ride comfort? Good when unladen, fantastic with a full load.

There are some fairly obvious drawbacks: it will only seat three and if the two on the passenger’s side are not well acquainted at the start of the journey, they certainly will be by its end. You need to be happy to drive without a rear-view mirror and the markedly cab-forward design means it feels you should turn in later and drive around the outside of corners, though you soon get used to it. Parking is easier than you’d think thanks to excellent mirrors, a reversing camera, fantastic steering lock and the fact the Transit is shorter than you might think too: shorter than a Range Rover for one.

Having not driven a van in years I was amazed by the standards set by this cheapest proper Transit – the smaller Transit Connect is a rebadged VW Caddy – and how much I enjoyed driving it. In these days of lowest common denominator motoring where being adequate at everything is deemed preferable to be being good at anything, the Transit is as clear example of what I like most in a vehicle as I’ve seen in a long time: like a Caterham, Ferrari F40, Dacia Jogger, an old Landie or a modern Rolls-Royce, it knows what, and who, it is for. In a car, van or anything else, there is no finer quality.