The
Ford E-Series, formerly known as the
Econoline or
Club Wagon, is a line of
full-sizeA full size van is a marketing term used in North America for a van larger than a minivan, that is characterized by a large boxy appearance, a short hood, and very heavy cargo/passenger hauling capacity...
vanA van is a kind of vehicle used for transporting goods or groups of people. It is usually a box-shaped vehicle on four wheels, about the same width and length as a large automobile, but taller and usually higher off the ground, also referred to as a light commercial vehicle or LCV...
s (both cargo and passenger) and truck
chassisA chassis consists of a framework that supports an inanimate object, analogous to an animal's skeleton, for example in a motor vehicle or a firearm.- Examples of use :...
from the
Ford Motor CompanyThe Ford Motor Company is an American multinational corporation based in Dearborn, Michigan, a suburb of Detroit. The automaker was founded by Henry Ford and incorporated on June 16, 1903. In addition to the Ford, Lincoln, and Mercury brands, Ford also owns Volvo Cars of Sweden, and a small stake...
. The E-Series is related to the
Ford F-SeriesThe F-Series is a series of full-size pickup trucks from Ford Motor Company sold for over five decades. The most popular variant of the F-Series is the F-150. It was the best-selling vehicle in the United States for 23 years and has been the best-selling truck for 31 years, though this does not...
line of pickup trucks. The line was introduced in 1961 as a
compact vanA compact van is a type of van characterized by a flat front design, mechanicals based on a compact car, an engine placed either at the rear or between and behind the front seats and were roughly the same size as the VW Bus. Popular in the United States during the early 1960s, they were replaced by...
and its descendants are still produced today. The Econoline is produced solely at Ford's
Avon Lake, OhioAvon Lake is a city in Lorain County, Ohio, United States. The population was 18,145 at the 2000 census.-Geography:Avon Lake is located at ....
plantOhio Assembly is a Ford Motor Company factory located in Avon Lake, Ohio. The plant opened in 1974 to produce the Ford Econoline van. It produced the Mercury Villager and Nissan Quest from 1993 through 2002, and the Ford Escape and Mercury Mariner until 2005. For 2006, the plant returned to...
after the closure of the
Lorain, OhioLorain is a city in Lorain County, Ohio, United States. The municipality is located in northeastern Ohio on Lake Erie, at the mouth of the Black River, west of Cleveland....
plantLorain Assembly was a Ford Motor Company factory in Lorain, Ohio. The plant opened in 1958 and closed in 2005, having produced approximately 7,500,000 vehicles under 12 model names...
in December 2005 and the consolidation of all production at Avon Lake.
As of 2009, the E-Series and the 2010 model year
Ford Transit ConnectThe Ford Transit Connect is a compact panel van developed by Ford Otosan, designed by Peter Horbury and introduced in 2002 to replace the older Ford Escort van range, which had ceased production in the same year....
compact MPVA Compact MPV is a car classification used in Europe to describe multi-purpose vehicle versions of small family cars , fitting between the mini MPV and large MPV sub-segments...
, which had its debut at the 2008
Chicago Auto ShowThe Chicago Auto Show is held annually in February at Chicago's McCormick Placeconvention complex. At , with over 1,000 vehicles on display, it is the largest auto show in North America and the third largest in the world .The event, first produced in 1901, has been staged more times than any other...
on February 11, 2009 are the only vans in the Ford lineup in
North AmericaNorth America is the northern continent of the Americas, situated in the Earth's northern hemisphere and in the western hemisphere. It is bordered on the north by the Arctic Ocean, on the east by the North Atlantic Ocean, on the southeast by the Caribbean Sea, and on the west by the North Pacific...
.
The Ford E-Series currently holds 79.6% of the full-size van market in the United States with 168,722 sales in the United States in 2007.
The
Ford E-Series, formerly known as the
Econoline or
Club Wagon, is a line of
full-sizeA full size van is a marketing term used in North America for a van larger than a minivan, that is characterized by a large boxy appearance, a short hood, and very heavy cargo/passenger hauling capacity...
vanA van is a kind of vehicle used for transporting goods or groups of people. It is usually a box-shaped vehicle on four wheels, about the same width and length as a large automobile, but taller and usually higher off the ground, also referred to as a light commercial vehicle or LCV...
s (both cargo and passenger) and truck
chassisA chassis consists of a framework that supports an inanimate object, analogous to an animal's skeleton, for example in a motor vehicle or a firearm.- Examples of use :...
from the
Ford Motor CompanyThe Ford Motor Company is an American multinational corporation based in Dearborn, Michigan, a suburb of Detroit. The automaker was founded by Henry Ford and incorporated on June 16, 1903. In addition to the Ford, Lincoln, and Mercury brands, Ford also owns Volvo Cars of Sweden, and a small stake...
. The E-Series is related to the
Ford F-SeriesThe F-Series is a series of full-size pickup trucks from Ford Motor Company sold for over five decades. The most popular variant of the F-Series is the F-150. It was the best-selling vehicle in the United States for 23 years and has been the best-selling truck for 31 years, though this does not...
line of pickup trucks. The line was introduced in 1961 as a
compact vanA compact van is a type of van characterized by a flat front design, mechanicals based on a compact car, an engine placed either at the rear or between and behind the front seats and were roughly the same size as the VW Bus. Popular in the United States during the early 1960s, they were replaced by...
and its descendants are still produced today. The Econoline is produced solely at Ford's
Avon Lake, OhioAvon Lake is a city in Lorain County, Ohio, United States. The population was 18,145 at the 2000 census.-Geography:Avon Lake is located at ....
plantOhio Assembly is a Ford Motor Company factory located in Avon Lake, Ohio. The plant opened in 1974 to produce the Ford Econoline van. It produced the Mercury Villager and Nissan Quest from 1993 through 2002, and the Ford Escape and Mercury Mariner until 2005. For 2006, the plant returned to...
after the closure of the
Lorain, OhioLorain is a city in Lorain County, Ohio, United States. The municipality is located in northeastern Ohio on Lake Erie, at the mouth of the Black River, west of Cleveland....
plantLorain Assembly was a Ford Motor Company factory in Lorain, Ohio. The plant opened in 1958 and closed in 2005, having produced approximately 7,500,000 vehicles under 12 model names...
in December 2005 and the consolidation of all production at Avon Lake.
As of 2009, the E-Series and the 2010 model year
Ford Transit ConnectThe Ford Transit Connect is a compact panel van developed by Ford Otosan, designed by Peter Horbury and introduced in 2002 to replace the older Ford Escort van range, which had ceased production in the same year....
compact MPVA Compact MPV is a car classification used in Europe to describe multi-purpose vehicle versions of small family cars , fitting between the mini MPV and large MPV sub-segments...
, which had its debut at the 2008
Chicago Auto ShowThe Chicago Auto Show is held annually in February at Chicago's McCormick Placeconvention complex. At , with over 1,000 vehicles on display, it is the largest auto show in North America and the third largest in the world .The event, first produced in 1901, has been staged more times than any other...
on February 11, 2009 are the only vans in the Ford lineup in
North AmericaNorth America is the northern continent of the Americas, situated in the Earth's northern hemisphere and in the western hemisphere. It is bordered on the north by the Arctic Ocean, on the east by the North Atlantic Ocean, on the southeast by the Caribbean Sea, and on the west by the North Pacific...
.
The Ford E-Series currently holds 79.6% of the full-size van market in the United States with 168,722 sales in the United States in 2007. It has been the best selling American full-sized van for 28 years, since 1980.
1961-1967 Compact Van
The first E-Series was based on the compact Ford Falcon, sized roughly to compete with the 1961
Chevrolet CorvairThe Chevrolet Corvair was an automobile produced by the Chevrolet division of General Motors from 1959 to 1969, for the 1960–1969 model years. The Corvair was offered in a wide range of body styles, including four-door sedans, two-door coupes, convertibles, and station wagons...
Sportvan and
Volkswagen Type 2The Volkswagen Type 2 was the second automotive line introduced by German automaker Volkswagen. It was a van introduced in 1950, initially based on Volkswagen's first model, the Type 1, also known as the "Beetle". The Type 2 is the forerunner of modern cargo and passenger vans...
, which was long. The first E-Series had a flat nose with the engine between and behind the front seats, later adopted by the
Chevrolet VanThe Chevrolet and GMC G-Series vans were made by General Motors for North America. They are in the same vehicle class as the Ford Econoline van and the Dodge Ram Van.The term "Chevrolet van" also refers to the entire series of vans sold by Chevrolet...
and
Dodge A100The A100 line was a family of compact vans and trucks produced by Chrysler and sold under the Dodge and Fargo brands from 1964 through 1970, competing with the Ford Econoline and Chevy Van, all inspired by the Volkswagen Type 2. It included a pickup truck and van, both with a "cab forward" design...
. Early models had a 144 cid
6-cylinderThe straight-six engine or inline-six engine is a six cylinder internal combustion engine with all six cylinders mounted in a straight line along the crankcase. The single bank of cylinders may be oriented in either a vertical or an inclined plane with all the pistons driving a common crankshaft...
engine with a
manualA manual transmission, or manual gearbox is a type of transmission used in motor vehicle applications...
3 speed transmission. Later models had a 170
CIDA cubic inch is a non-SI unit of volume, equal to the volume of a cube with sides of one inch.Cubic inches are still sometimes used as a unit of measurement in the United States and Canada, although SI is continuing to gradually displace non-SI usage.-Notation conventions:The following symbols...
or 240 CID engines with an
automatic transmissionAn automatic transmission is an automobile gearbox that can change gear ratios automatically as the vehicle moves, freeing the driver from having to shift gears manually...
. It was an immediate success with utilities like the Bell Telephone System. In the first 1961 model year, 29,932 standard vans, 6,571 custom Econoline buses, 11,893 standard pickups and 3,000 custom pickups were made. It was originally offered as a cargo van, an 8-passenger van with 3 rows of seats (which carried the Ford Falcon name) and as a
pickup truckA pickup truck is a light motor vehicle with an open-top rear cargo area which is almost always separated from the cab to allow for chassis flex when carrying or pulling heavy loads....
. A weight was fitted over the rear wheels to balance the front-heavy vehicle, sometimes removed by current owners.
1968-1974
The 1968 Ford E-Series revolutionized van design by moving the engine all the way to the front under a short hood, in a similar configuration to their new European model the
Ford TransitThe Ford Transit is a range of panel vans, minibuses and pickup trucks, produced by the Ford Motor Company in Europe.The Transit has been the best-selling light commercial vehicle in Europe for 40 years, and in some countries the term "Transit" has passed into common usage as a generic term...
. These would be the first vans used as the basis for the now popular Class C van cab motorhomes, a class still dominated by Ford. The 1968 E-Series also used Ford's "Twin I-Beam" front suspension design, and was now available with a V8 engine. Over the next six years, the "Big Three" (
GMGeneral Motors Company, often known as simply GM, is a United States based automaker with headquarters in Detroit, Michigan. GM was the world's 18th largest corporate entity and third largest automaker as ranked by 2008 revenues on the Fortune Global 500. Ranked by global unit sales for 2008, it...
,
ChryslerChrysler Group, LLC is an American automobile manufacturer headquartered in the Detroit suburb of Auburn Hills, Michigan. Chrysler was first organized as the Chrysler Corporation in 1925. From 1998 to 2007, Chrysler and its subsidiaries were part of the German based DaimlerChrysler AG...
and Ford) would all redesign their vans, with hoods gradually evolving to a short conventional truck-like hood, and evolving from being based on compact cars to using components from full-sized pickup trucks.
The grille was redesigned in 1971, and a year later E-Series offered a new feature, and a new model. Sliding rear doors were an option for 1972, as well as the Hi-Cube van, the first van with a stripped chassis used for something other than recreational vehicles.
1975-1991
The E-Series was redesigned in 1975 with more ergonomic controls and a full frame, allowing it to be used as a truck
chassisA chassis consists of a framework that supports an inanimate object, analogous to an animal's skeleton, for example in a motor vehicle or a firearm.- Examples of use :...
. This was the beginning of four wheel drive conversions for the van. The nose now had a proper hood, very close to the length used today. This bodystyle continued through 1991. In 1979 the front grille and headlights were facelifted and square headlights were incorporated. In 1983, Ford's "Blue Oval" logo was integrated into the front grille.
Van conversionsA Conversion van Is a full-size cargo van that is sent to third-party companies to be outfitted with various luxuries for road trips and camping.- History :...
became a popular alternative to sparse factory passenger accommodations.
The basic appearance of the front end of this car was replicated for the
Ford RangerFord Ranger is a name used on two distinct compact pickup truck lines by the Ford Motor Company and by a marketing arrangement with Mazda.* A Ford-designed compact pickup truck, which is sold and manufactured in North America as well as Brazil, Chile, Argentina and South Africa. It is also...
and its SUV offspring the
Ford Bronco IIThe Ford Bronco II was a compact SUV sold between 1984 and 1990. It was commissioned as a smaller complement to the full-size Bronco as well as to offer a Ford alternative to the Chevrolet S-10 Blazer, Jeep Cherokee and Toyota 4Runner. The Bronco II was Ford's first compact SUV since the original...
.
A 1980 Econoline was the vehicle that accompanied, and provided accommodation for,
Terry FoxTerrance Stanley "Terry" Fox, CC was a Canadian humanitarian, athlete, and cancer treatment activist. He became famous for the Marathon of Hope, a cross-Canada run to raise money for cancer research, which Fox ran with one prosthetic leg...
when he undertook his
Marathon of HopeThe Marathon of Hope is a name given to the cross-Canada run undertaken by cancer patient Terry Fox in 1980. It is commemorated each year with the Terry Fox Run which is an international event that raises money for cancer research....
across Canada. After providing transportation for other owners in its later life, from
London, OntarioLondon is a city in Southwestern Ontario, Canada along the Quebec City-Windsor Corridor with a metropolitan area population of 457,720; the city proper had a population of 352,395 in the 2006 Canadian census....
to a rock band based in Vancouver, British Columbia, it was recovered and restored by
Ford Motor Company of CanadaFord Motor Company of Canada, Limited was founded in 1904 for the purpose of manufacturing and selling Ford automobiles in Canada and the British Empire. The Ford Motor Company in Detroit transferred the patent and selling rights to the Walkerville Wagon Company, in order to avoid the tariff rates...
in 2008 and turned over to the
Terry Fox FoundationThe Terry Fox Run is an annual non-competitive charity event held in numerous regions across the globe in commemoration of Canadian cancer activist Terry Fox, and his Marathon of Hope, and to raise money for cancer research....
to assist in further fund-raising activities.
1992-2007
The redesigned 1992 E-Series was available with a 4.9
L
inline sixThe straight-six engine or inline-six engine is a six cylinder internal combustion engine with all six cylinders mounted in a straight line along the crankcase. The single bank of cylinders may be oriented in either a vertical or an inclined plane with all the pistons driving a common crankshaft...
, 5.0, 5.8, and 7.5 liter V8 engines, or a 7.3 L
Power StrokeThe Power Stroke is manufactured by Navistar International Corporation for Ford Motor Company. These engines are built in Indianapolis, Indiana, Huntsville, Alabama, and Brazil....
dieselA diesel engine is an internal combustion engine that uses the heat of compression to initiate ignition to burn the fuel, which is injected into the combustion chamber during the final stage of compression...
V8. The consumer-oriented
Chateau Club Wagon version was
Motor TrendMotor Trend is an automobile magazine. It first appeared in September 1949, issued by Petersen Publishing Company in Los Angeles, and bearing the tag line The Magazine for a Motoring World. Petersen Publishing was sold to British publisher EMAP in 1998, who sold the former Petersen magazines to...
magazine's
Truck of the YearCar of the Year is a phrase usually considered to have been invented by Motor Trend magazine in the 1950s for their annual award for best automobile...
for 1992. The design was smoother and more aerodynamic, and the vans no longer wore taillight lenses that had been shared with Ford's
F-SeriesThe F-Series is a series of full-size pickup trucks from Ford Motor Company sold for over five decades. The most popular variant of the F-Series is the F-150. It was the best-selling vehicle in the United States for 23 years and has been the best-selling truck for 31 years, though this does not...
trucks from 1973 to 1979.
With this body style, Ford dominated the market for 15 passenger vans once created by Dodge. It was favored by churches, but the high heavy-duty body became notorious for rollover incidents due to the high center of gravity and the weight of 15 adults. For this reason it is recommended that only trained drivers drive these vehicles and that nothing be carried on the roof of such vehicles. In recent years, some insurance carriers have required that the four-passenger seat in the last row be removed, reducing passenger capacity to 11. (For further information on this topic, see Rollover Safety.)
The only visible exterior change for 1995 was the deletion of the orange turn signals in the tail lights, used from 1992-1994.
1997
The 1997 Econoline received an updated front end with a new grille that featured an oval cutout and new lower front bumper trim. Also new was an ergonomic dashboard layout containing dual airbags. Also introduced at this time were the new line of Triton V8 engines to replace the Windsors and the 460. The new lineup of engines featured a 4.2 L
EssexThe Ford Essex V6 engine was a 90° V6 engine family built by Ford Motor Company at the Essex Engine Plant in Windsor, Ontario, Canada. Unlike the British Essex V6, the Canadian Essex used a 90° V configuration, in addition to having different displacements and valvetrains...
V6, 4.6 L and 5.4 L Triton V8s, and a 6.8 L Triton
V10A V10 engine is a V engine with 10 cylinders in two banks of five with a distinct exhaust note.- Mechanicals :The V10 can be considered to be constructed by mating two even firing straight-5 engines together. The straight 5 engine shows first and second order rocking motion...
. The 7.3 L diesel continued unchanged.
2001 E-Series
For 2001, Ford again refreshed the Econoline, with a new
E-150 Traveler model targeted at families.
The Traveler would be a short-lived model, however, as
minivanA minivan, multi-purpose vehicle , people-carrier, people-mover or multi-utility vehicle is a type of automobile similar in shape to a van that is designed for personal use...
s and SUVs were by this point far more popular for passenger use. But, as full-size vans have the towing and payload and optional diesel power of full-sized pickups and room for 8 to 15 passengers plus their baggage, a certain segment of customers continued to buy the E-Series (and, to a lesser extent, its competitors from GM and Chrysler).
For the first time on all models, the "E-Series" name replaced Econoline, and was sold as such in the literature on commercial vans and
ambulanceAn ambulance is a vehicle for transporting sick or injured people, to, from or between places of treatment for an illness or injury. The term ambulance is used to describe a vehicle used to bring medical care to patients outside of the hospital or to transport the patient to hospital for follow-up...
packages, another category dominated by Ford. Heavy-duty cutaway van models, most often used in large box vans and Class C
recreational vehicleIn North America the term recreational vehicle and its acronym, RV, are generally used to refer to a vehicle equipped with living space and amenities found in a home; they are sometimes called motorhomes. A recreational vehicle normally includes a kitchen, a bathroom, a bedroom and a living room...
s, also featured "E-350" or "E-450" badging on the front fenders.
2003
For 2003, Ford refreshed the E-Series by changing the grille style, incorporating an integral Ford logo. A new engine cover cup holder and glove box was also added.
2004 saw the replacement of the 7.3 L Power Stroke diesel and the introduction of the new 6.0L Power Stroke with more power than the 7.3, but still detuned from the same engine in the F-Series due to a lack of airflow in the engine compartment. The 6.0 Powerstroke is intercooled, however the 7.3 L lacked an intercooler.
Inside, a new gauge cluster was also added, including a tachometer, along with a digital odometer.
In 2006, the 6.8 L Triton V10 produced 305
hpHorsepower is the name of several non-SI units of power. It was originally defined to allow the output of steam engines to be measured and compared with the power output of draft horses. The horsepower was widely adopted to measure the output of piston engines, turbines, electric motors and other...
and 420
lb·ftThe foot-pound force, or simply foot-pound is a unit of work or energy .-Other units of energy:...
torqueTorque, also called moment or moment of force , is the tendency of a force to rotate an object about an axis, fulcrum, or pivot. Just as a force is a push or a pull, a torque can be thought of as a twist....
, 235/440 for the diesel.
A hydrogen-fuelled version of this engine powers an E-450 shuttle bus produced since 2007, used first in airports in Vancouver, British Columbia and
Orlando, FloridaOrlando is a major city in the central region of the U.S. state of Florida. It is the county seat of Orange County and the center of the Greater Orlando metropolitan region...
.
The E-series is an excellent tow vehicle, due to the available GCWR (Gross Combined Weight Rating) of up to 20,000 pounds, and its relatively low curb weight. No other van or SUV can match its available towing capacity and payload.
95 percent of van sales are to commercial or fleet-end users, about half are cargo vans. The E-Series cargo area features a double-wall design — a full-size van exclusive — which leaves the exterior sheet metal less vulnerable to damage from shifting cargo.
In early 2007, the E-series was listed by Autodata as one of the top 20 best-selling vehicles in the United States, most likely due to fleet sales. The competing models from GM have only been lightly updated since their 1995 redesign. Chrysler abandoned its Dodge Ram Van, a body style essentially unchanged from the 1970s, in favor of the Sprinter, a narrow European Mercedes-Benz van with a
turbodieselTurbodiesel refers to any diesel engine with a turbocharger. Turbocharging is the norm rather than the exception in modern car and truck diesel engines...
engine, which has found favor primarily in commercial delivery with its high roof, and high-end, high-mileage Class C RV.
2008
Ford introduced the new E-Series at the New York Auto Show in March 2007. The van received completely redesigned front end sheet metal similar to that of the 2008 Ford Super Duty trucks, which Ford claims makes the vans look "Built Ford Tough." It has been overhauled with better handling, more payload and a sharper look.
Updates to the front end of the van include larger headlights, a larger grille, and a longer hood than previously used on E-Series and Econoline vans. The 6.0 L turbo diesel is retained on the Super Duty E-series, while Super Duty F series received the new 6.4 L twin turbo diesel. Gasoline engines carried over. A series of upgrades to the braking, suspension and steering systems have resulted in improvements in ride and handling, braking performance and load carrying capability, although the Twin-I-Beam front suspension remains. Four-wheel drive is available through Ford Fleet Truck using current model year Super Duty parts.
The chassis and suspension improvements have also resulted in an increase in the maximum gross vehicle weight rating (GVWR) from 14,050 pounds to a class-leading 14,500 pounds. Additionally, the maximum front gross axle weight rating (GAWR) is increased by about 10 percent, from 4,600 pounds to a class-leading 5,000 pounds.
2009
In 2009 the E-Series received a new dashboard, complete with an available in-dash navigation system and upfitter switches as used in the F-Series Super Duty trucks. Also included is a passenger-side glove compartment, a first for the E-Series. Previously, the glove compartment was integrated in the engine cover.
Another new 2009 option is the rear-view backup camera, which is becoming widely available throughout the industry on smaller vehicles; it is another first for Ford in the full-size van field.
And finally, Ford is the first automotive manufacturer to offer a full-size van that is capable of using E-85; this option is most commonly available on Ford's F-150 with the 5.4 L engine. It will be available on the 2009 4.6 L and 5.4 L engines, as Ford aims to continue to dominate the full size van market while delivering relief from high gas prices.
Adventure
In 2005, a team of Icelander and British adventurers prepared a modified 6x6 Econoline for extreme ice conditions, brought it to the coast of Antarctica and crossed the ice cap to reach the
South PoleThe South Pole, also known as the Geographic South Pole or Terrestrial South Pole, is one of the two points where the Earth's axis of rotation intersects the surface. It is the southernmost point on the surface of the Earth and lies on the opposite side of the Earth from the North Pole...
in 70 hours, setting a new world record of overland travel to the South Pole.
External links