The all-new Ford Transit Custom launched in Europe last fall, and has since continued that model’s success atop the sales charts. However, it will also soon be built alongside one of its future competitors – the all-new Volkswagen Transporter – at the joint-venture Ford Otosan Assembly plant in Turkey. That model is one of several that stems from a partnership between Ford and VW that originated just a few years ago, but it seems as if the Ford Transit Custom formed the basis for the new Transporter, and not the other way around.
“You’ve seen with Ranger that Ford has this alliance on commercial vehicles with Volkswagen,” Peter Watt, Ford Pro Europe communications manager, told CarExpert. “The [Transit] Connect van product [a restyled Caddy] is led by Volkswagen, the Ranger and this product the engineering and the manufacturing are led by Ford, so all the content that you see in this product is Ford content. The high-level product content was conceived through Ford, and the Volkswagen product was evolved from that.”
As Watt noted here, the Volkswagen Transporter is one of a few models that was designed largely by The Blue Oval, in this case, as an alternative to the Ford Transit Custom. The VW Amarok, on the other hand, is based on the all-new Ford Ranger, but was designed specifically to offer customers its own unique style and driving characteristics as well. On the flip side, the new Ford Tourneo Connect exists essentially as a rebadged Volkswagen van and utilizes VW engines with Blue Oval names. Then there’s the Ford Explorer EV in Europe, which rides on VW’s MEB platform.
Ford and Volkswagen’s relationship will continue to grow and evolve moving forward, though interestingly enough, general manager of Ford Europe, Martin Sander resigned from his position this week and will now return to VW as the Board Member for Sales, Marketing and After Sales at Volkswagen Passenger Cars.
We’ll have more on Ford and Volkswagen’s partnership very soon, so be sure and subscribe to Ford Authority for the latest Ford business news and non-stop Ford news coverage.
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