Review: Ford Transit Connect small van delivers smooth ride

— -- Here's one of the best ideas since sliced bread: a compact cargo van that, properly optioned, could just about serve as the family bus.

If the 2010 Ford Transit Connect doesn't evoke in spirit, if not appearance, the 1960s Volkswagen Bus, you're too young, you were too stoned to remember or you have no imagination.

Ford says the official reason for modifying the Euro-market TC for the U.S. is to plug a hole in the market. It's for business people who don't want the cost or size of a big van but need something more utilitarian and robust than a minivan or hatchback.

But — wink, wink, nod, nod — there just might be a few surfers, artists, college students, vagabonds and unrehabilitated hippies to broaden TC's appeal.

Primitive by today's hoity-toity standards, perhaps, but a delight all 480 miles from USA TODAY HQ in McLean, Va., to Knoxville, Tenn. A hefty bunch of that was in rain and wind so vicious that the radio station began yelping for everybody to get off the road in that "we're all gonna die" way of weather warnings.

Transit Connect pressed on, its wipers flicking away rain as if the storm were a shower. The low center of gravity more than compensated for the tall silhouette to keep the TC stable in the fierce crosswind. Dry-road handling was good, too.

The four-cylinder engine, based on what's in the Focus compact car, should have been unsuitable in the hills and against the wind, but it just growled louder and maintained. True, a five-speed automatic instead of the Transit Connect's four-speed would have calmed the frantic up/downshifting. But what's a bit of shifting back and forth between friends?

The work-truck cloth seats were remarkably comfortable even though (perhaps because) they lacked uncounted ways of adjusting. Less is more.

A ceiling-mounted shelf designed for invoices, computers, order pads and the like was perfect for maps, snacks and other road-trip detritus.

Lightly laden, TC rode smoothly. Usually, cargo haulers need weight aboard to ride smoothly.