Sixty years at the top. It’s one hell of an accomplishment. It's no surprise that the Transit van has been completely and utterly integrated into the British way of life since it was launched. It’s also not surprising that nearly everyone has a Ford Transit story. So, here’s mine… and it’s not what you might think.
It’s been a well-documented fact, some stat thrown out by the Metropolitan Police, that in the 70s, Transit vans were involved in 95% of all armed robberies.
With that important bit of information in mind, my colleague and I thought it would be a good idea to find out who is better off…
A modern bank robber in a Transit with all the modern safety systems and power, or an old-school blagger in an Mk1 Transit being chased by the Flying Squad in a motor from that era.
It was a nice bit of fun for a light-hearted magazine feature, a chance to raid the priceless Ford Heritage collection for a couple of vehicles we’ve always fancied driving. Ford’s pristine Mk1 Transit van in the now-famous yellow and black GEC livery was drafted in alongside an MkII Ford Cortina.
I raided a local hardware shop for a thick navy boiler suit and borrowed a pair of stockings to pull over my head and mask my identity as the bad guy in this story.
The concept was simple. Stage a few photos of a bag of “swag” being tossed from the Transit, while the Cortina was in hot pursuit. A handful of runs on a skid pan and we’d have our opening shot.
And so it began… I pulled down my ladies’ socking disguise and climbed in through the Transit’s sliding door, which I kept open in order to discard my bag of stolen swag during the photography.
I slid in across the slippery vinyl seats and reached for my seat belt, remembering it pre-dated mandatory seatbelts.
The “chase” began and my colleague in their rather convincing uniform of The Flying Squad, with an elbow-patched jacket and questionable shirt, slalomed close behind at the wheel of the Cortina.
As we snaked our way towards the camera lens, mid-turn I missed a hand on the wheel. As I unwound the ludicrous amounts of steering lock needed to get the van to roll with some attitude, I began to slide. My boiler suit-clad arse was heading right out the door. I slid rapidly across the vinyl and faced with a very quick decision, there was just one option. Jump before you fall.
With most of my body now outside of the van and with just one hand on the steering wheel, my departing move was to roll the wheel away as best I could to avoid the line of cars it would otherwise be
heading for.
I then thought to myself you’ll have to jump and jump far enough away so that you don't run yourself over.
So, there I was, rolling across the ground having jumped from a van that I was, moments ago, driving myself, in the region of 40 mph. Fortunately the Cortina missed me, but the van was still in gear.
Lying on the ground momentarily dazed by what had just happened, I suddenly thought about the priceless piece of Ford history hurtling towards the grass bank at the side of the track.
Within moments of hitting the ground I was back on my feet chasing after the Transit. Running faster than Usain Bolt, by some miracle I stopped it barely two feet before hitting the bank, saving a van which has over the years become a symbol of Ford history and market dominance from what would have surely been irreparable damage.
The whole event is etched in my memory like a scene from your favourite movie, but where there’s stunts there are inevitably injuries.
The hardware shop boiler suit had survived the fall. My sporadic martial arts training, including a lot of being thrown about in various Judo and Aikido classes, has also prevented any broken bones. But there was some blood.
Some slight grazes to my hand that protected my face, and a scrape to my chin. I’d come away miraculously unscathed.
Then I peeled back the boiler suit...
Despite being perfectly intact, the t-shirt beneath it was damaged. The bright white fabric had a scorched outline.
The skin too was damaged, but not how you might expect. The boiler suit was dirty and covered in dust. The reddening wound was suspiciously completely clean.
Tiny fragments of gravel had managed to slice the skin like razor blades, but the damage wasn’t road rash, it was a burn.
Being the consummate professional you would expect from a journalist turned stuntman, we immediately bandaged it up and carried on with the shoot. The Transit burst through cardboard boxes (a prerequisite for any car chase) and the modern vehicles slipped and slided around the track with blue lights and tyre smoke.
Several hours later, in the relative safety of my flat, I unpeeled the makeshift dressing. The previously minor-looking graze (not dissimilar to a child’s bashed knee) was now an angry, bloody mess.
*CAUTION GRAPHIC IMAGE INCOMING*
Being a burn, it also kept “improving” too. It went from angry to downright furious. Having skipped a trip to A&E, the following day (after a night of oozing and sticking to bed sheets) I ventured to a local walk-in centre. To say that explaining the scenario confused the nurse was an understatement; any conversation that begins with “I was doing this bank job, right, when I fell out of a van that I was driving” is bound to cause some nervousness.
Needless to say, my shoulder was not in a good state, and when the baffled nurse removed the dressing and gasped, I knew it wasn’t something where a plaster would simply suffice.
I got patched up, and some three months later it was all healed. But the scar was… considerable (and nearly 15 years later it still remains).
Not one to shy away from an opportunity to take the piss when I set foot back into the office the following day, a thoughtful gift was already waiting for me.
The very same Mk1 Transit van in miniature Corgi toy form was sitting on my desk, with an action man superglued to the front wing.
It’s still pride of place in my office and to this day, a constant reminder to always wear a seatbelt.
Happy 60th birthday Transit.
