Supervan legacy still in fast Ford

God bless Ford UK and its decades-old assertion that the humble delivery van deserves the opportunity to boast highperformance firepower.

This belief started with the Transit-based Supervan, Supervan II and Supervan III projects in the 1970s and 80s and it’s good to see the desire for truly mad motorsport-inspired takes on conventional parcel delivery remain within Ford of Europe.

The bodyshell might be smaller, but Ford’s latest creation, the Focus RSpowered Transit Connect, is no less bonkers, proving a courier van with a hot-hatch engine is one of the best Frankenmotor recipes around.

Despite having a first-gen Focus engine under its hood, the Transit RS Connect can still shift. The 2-litre four-cylinder is good for 158kW and 310Nm. No, not startling by modern Ford EcoBoost engine tech standards, but with almost nothing bar a roll cage and Recaro sports seat inside, the Transit RS Connect weighs about as much as your average Amazon.com package. To aid with weight distribution, the van features two spare wheels in the cargo bay.

And a sub-seven second sprint from 0-100km/h still scoffs at the notion of orange “Fragile Item” stickers.

For some diverting screen time as you try to settle back into your late-January working week, we’d suggest heading to YouTube and seeking out the awesome old doco footage of the original Ford Supervan projects to

be found there.