The Ford Transit Courier — the smallest Transit-branded model in the company’s LCV division — celebrates its ninth year on the market in 2023. The oval Blue automaker has typically sold its small business vans for around ten years, meaning a replacement should be on the road soon. We have new spy photos that show work on the new Transit Courier is well under way as the camouflaged prototype was caught in Germany wearing its production body.
This isn’t the first time we’ve shared spy photos with the new Transit Courier. In September last year, our photographer photographed an early test vehicle sporting the front fascia of the Puma crossover but missing its production body and lights. As you can see now, the body of the prototype is boxier and the front fascia is edgier. To some extent, the light commercial van looks like the smaller Tourneo Connect, which is in turn a reworked version of the Volkswagen Caddy.
The new Transit Courier will be produced at Ford’s Craiova plant in Romania where the Puma crossover is also being assembled. Both vans and crossovers will receive fully electric versions and Ford is looking to have a battery-powered variant in every LCV by the middle of this decade. The Transit Courier EV will join the recently launched Tourneo Custom with a 74 kilowatt-hour battery for an estimated range of 230 miles (370 kilometers).
Ford hasn’t shared any official information regarding the new van, but it is believed it will use a modified version of the Puma platform, which in turn is based on the current Fiesta. The LCV has five lug nuts as opposed to its predecessor’s four lug nut arrangement, which could be a hint at the new model’s slightly larger dimensions and higher load capacity. Combustion and an electric powertrain are planned, but we don’t know much about them. The 1.0-liter EcoBoost will likely be the core engine before EVs arrive.
The new Transit Courier will continue to be a European only affair because it is too small for American tastes. The future of the smaller Transit van in the US is uncertain at this time as the automaker has reportedly decided to drop its Transit Connect replacement project.
