Ford will upgrade the Transit van built exclusively at Claycomo

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.

Claycomo began building the 2015 Transit a year ago, and Ford said the plant had produced more than 100,000 vans and wagon versions so far.

Ford said Tuesday that the Transit’s May sales were its best since last June’s launch. Dealers sold 11,715 Transits in May, up 38 percent from April.

The 2016 Transit will be available in 58 configurations, up from 47 this model year. Four new paint colors will make their debut for the 2016 model.

“Transit customers appreciate that the vehicle is purpose-built to serve their businesses, and the enhancements we are making for 2016 are driven by customer feedback,” said Yaro Hetman, Ford’s Transit brands manager.

The dual sliding cargo doors will be available for the first time on medium- and high-roof Transits. And Ford said fleet customers will have an option to add a speed limitation feature that caps speeds at 70 mph. The 2015 Transits can limit speeds to 65 and 75 mph.

Ford has not released pricing information for 2016. The base price on the 2015 van is $29,735 and $32,270 for the wagon version.

This story was originally published June 3, 2015 at 6:00 PM with the headline "Ford will upgrade the Transit van built exclusively at Claycomo."