June 19, 2015
Steve Rosen

The popular Transit commercial van, built at Ford Motor Co.’s Kansas City assembly plant, is undergoing a mini-makeover as it turns 1 year old.

The new standard features and options for the 2016 Transit will include sliding cargo doors, a rearview camera and trailer hitch technology, and an improved communications and entertainment system with voice recognition and easier-to-understand navigational graphics, Ford said.

Workers at the Claycomo plant — the only factory in North America that assembles the Transit — are scheduled to start building the 2016 version soon. Ford said it will begin taking online orders for the Transit on Aug. 11, and the new models will start showing up at dealerships in September.

Though the 2016 Transit will be upgraded, it is not being totally redesigned. As a result, Ford said, there are no current plans to add jobs at Claycomo.

The plant, which also assembles the F-Series pickup truck, has 7,485 employees, including 7,189 hourly workers. Ford said about 3,000 employees work specifically on the Transit line.

Ford launched the Transit in 2014 as a replacement for its best-selling E-Series vans, such as the Econoline, which was first sold in 1961. The Transit sister product, the Transit Connect, is popular in Europe and is also going to be refined for 2016.

Source
The Kansas City Star