FORD'S new director of commercial vehicles, Gary Whittam, is starting his job confident that the UK's leading LCV manufacturer can retain its commanding market share.

Last year Ford sold a total of 74,273 vans up to 3.5-tonnes gross vehicle weight, compared to its nearest rival Vauxhall which sold 32,124.

But with a host of new models being launched against Ford, Whittam is in no doubt that the battle for sales will be a hard-fought one.

He said: 'We are confident that with the strength and depth of our commercial vehicle product range, allied to the Transit Specialist Dealer network, we will continue to offer our commercial vehicle customers vehicles that meet their specific requirements with outstanding cost of ownership. We fully expect competition to be tough, but with our recently-announced ABS standardisation on Transit, new two-tonne low floor Transits, LPG Transit Connect and the new Fiesta Van later this year, we clearly have strong product plans to keep us ahead.'