Escort Combi van
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• Ford has extended its light van range with the addition of a West German-built dual-purpose model based on the topselling Escort estate.
The Escort Combi has the estate's rear windows blanked in with steel panels, and its load platform extended over the rear footwells fmishing behind the driver's seat with a half-height bulkhead.
The Combi offers the same 350kg payload as the smallest Escort 35 van although its unmodified estate body shell has a much smaller (L18m3) load volume compared with the 2.24m3 capacity in the Escort van's purpose-built body.
Two versions are available. The standard Combi has the 44kW (59hp) 1.3-litre OHV petrol engine, while the Combi L van — which has extra carpeting, more noise insulation and adjustable headrests — gets Ford's latest 55kW (74hp) 1.4-litre CVH lean-burn engine (CM, May 31).
Both models may be specified with the same 40kW (54hp) 1,600cc OHC diesel unit offered in Escort 35 and 55 vans.
All petrol-engined Combi vans come with a four-speed gearbox as standard, although a five-speed box is optional on the 1.4-litre van, and standard on diesel versions.
Price for the 1.3-litre Combi base van is .£4,682 and £5,277 equipped with the diesel engine.
Unlike the bigger-volume Escort 35 and 55 Escort vans, which have a tubular beam rear axle with semi-elliptic leaf springs, the Combi van retains the estate's independent coil spring rear suspension layout Ford is aiming the Combi at van operators who want a highspecification vehicle for business and private use, and in particular those in the service industries such as the TV rental companies. All Combi vans come with a radio, single tailgate with washiwipe (Escort vans have twin rear doors), heated rear screen and reclining cloth-covered seats as standard.
By offering a van on an unmodified estate body shell, Ford has also gained a van directly comparable to the Bedford Astra Van and the Peugeot 305.
Although the Escort van range is built at Halewood, Merseyside, Combi vans will be imported from Germany.
0 "Niggling problems" at Ford's Southampton van plant — including trouble with the production line robots — has resulted in fewer longwheelbase Transit vans being produced than originally scheduled.
Around 240 Transit variants are being built each day at Southampton, although the proportion of long-wheelbase chassis cabs and minibuses is running higher than expected to make up for the shortfall in LCY vans.
According to Ford, the imbalance is being corrected and the lack of long-wheelbase vans is not related to any vehicle defect.