Ford Motor Co. wants to grow its lucrative commercial truck business as it shifts customers to a new line of vehicles.

The stalwart Ford Crown Victoria and Lincoln Town Car were discontinued in August, and the E-Series van will drive off into the sunset in 2013. That leaves an array of fleet buyers from taxi and limo drivers to police officers and drivers of service vehicles seeking replacements.

Ford is hoping E-Series customers will seamlessly shift to a future version of the Ford Transit commercial van that will be built at the automaker's Kansas City plant and go on sale in 2013. It is counting on taxi drivers to embrace the Transit Connect; that police will be satisfied with the Taurus- and Explorer-based Interceptors that go into production in January; and that Town Car customers will migrate to the Lincoln MKT Town Car for their limo and livery needs when that vehicle goes into production next spring.

"They don't have much choice," said analyst Dave Sullivan of AutoPacific Inc. in Ann Arbor. Ford had to draw from its modern lineup to satisfy commercial customers.

Ford has sold about 232,000 commercial vehicles through September, said Len Deluca, director of commercial vehicles.



From The Detroit News: http://detnews.com/article/20111208/AUTO01/112080355/Ford-steers-fleet-to-Transit#ixzz1fwpE3RQf

Makes me sad to read. Our family had 2 Econoline both conversion vans, an 84 with the 5.0 and 94 with the 5.8. They were tough as nails and never let us down, we took a lot of trips in them from RI to Florida, RI to Chicago, RI to Detroit then to Canada etc etc. They just kept going and going. I hope the Transit will be able to be a perfect replacement and have the same kind of durability as the E Series.

E-Series will still live on for cutaways though.

Why does the U.S version have to be called the T-Series? The U.S version of the Kuga is the Escape. Why can't they keep the Econoline name?

Why does the U.S version have to be called the T-Series? The U.S version of the Kuga is the Escape. Why can't they keep the Econoline name?

I was thinking the same thing but this article says they will be selling them side by side so that would just cause a lot of confusion

they could call the Euro ones: the "Eu-series" http://www.blueovalforums.com/forums/public/style_emoticons/default/wink.gif