IN THIS FEATURE 40 years on the job Early examples Gaining car-like luxuries Looks and practicality Here to stay

The Transit, Ford's ubiquitous light commercial vehicle, has been with us for 40 years. The first one rolled off a production line near Heathrow Airport on August 6th 1965 and the model is now into its fourth generation. The 5,000,000th Transit was built in 2004 and it still outsells its rivals 3-1, even though that opposition is much tougher now than it was in 1965.

"Freeway" special edition created for happy campers

Southampton is the new home of the Transit (it moved from Langley in 1972), but they are built in satellite factories around the world, from Portugal and Turkey to Vietnam, Malaysia and China. Be it a high-top Luton for light removals, an open-sided milk float or a Mr Whippy's ice cream van, almost everybody must have come across one version or another over the years because the Transit has been put to practically every use. As public servant, for instance, it has been both an ambulance and a police riot van. When you feel poorly they put you in the back of one. When you are naughty they throw you in the back. When your car breaks down your roadside recovery man will likely turn up in a Transit. While you await him in the lay-by you can buy your salmonella burger from a Transit-based catering van. Any tradesman that needs a roomy and robust load carrier will almost invariably end up behind the wheel of A Transit. Mythical 'white van men' - plumbers, plasterers, glaziers, joiners and the rest - find their natural habitat here, traditionally with a copy of the The Sun and the discarded remnants of his lunch rolling about on top of the dashboard.

There is even a hint of glamour about it if you search for it. Paul Newman drove a Transit in the 1973 film The Mackintosh Man while, in real life, the Transit has been a tour bus for untold numbers of pop groups since 1965, plying the motorways in search of drugs, sex and rock and roll.