In the never-ending quest to make the Transit all things to all men, Ford has launched yet another derivative – and this time it’s something rather special.

The Transit AWD (all-wheel drive) gives Britain’s biggest-selling van mud-plugging capabilities that its standard brother could only dream about.

Ford’s new offering takes all the decisions out of whether to drive two wheels or four – the engineering takes care of it all, thus making driving safer and also saving fuel by swapping back to two-wheel drive as soon as four-wheel drive isn’t necessary.

Chassis-cabs and minibuses are also available with the AWD technology, for £3,995 more than a standard version.

However, the AWD option is limited to one engine – the 2.4-litre TDCi diesel unit with 140bhp and a six-speed manual gearbox.

The vehicles don’t look any different from the outside – Ford’s designers decided that for most fleet purposes, the Transit is high enough off the ground already.

That way cargo can be loaded and unloaded easier. And as the all-wheel drive technology weighs only 50kg, it does not affect the vehicles’ load carrying capacities unnecessarily.

Ford says it can’t make too many predictions about who will buy these vehicles, but made a conservative estimate of selling between 300 and 600 units a year.

Behind the wheel

Because the AWD doesn’t look any different from a standard Transit, it’s easy to think that it isn’t really a pukka off-roader. Indeed, it was never meant to be one, but simply a vehicle that wouldn’t get bogged down on a muddy building site.

But you’d be wrong. When the first AWDs were built recently, even Ford’s own testers were taken aback at how far they could be pushed.

Having spent a morning driving around an off-road course in a medium-wheelbase, high-roof model, I can state categorically that this Transit will take a lot more than any fleet will ever throw at it.

I’m not an expert off-roader, but with a professional driver on hand to advise me about gear changing and accelerator dabbing, I managed the course without mishap. I was left hugely impressed as our Transit handled everything with the utmost aplomb. 

Verdict

I was hugely impressed with this vehicle – it was much more capable off-road than I’d imagined.

It will make an ideal, and more practical, alternative to the standard four-wheel drive trucks that most fleets
use at present.