The white bread box in E150 cargo van clothing

When I worked for a car rental agency, one of the most unloved vehicles in our fleet was a Ford E150 cargo van. At a year old it still had not accumulated over 25,000 miles. This was easy to understand, Slab sided exterior and stark interior left a lot to be desired for creature comforts. All of this was fine by us, the employees of the rental branch; it became our professional and personal hauler of just about anything

While customers saw limitations of the body style we saw the versatility to haul all sorts of furniture, mattresses, appliances and full sheets of plywood laid down flat on the floor. The van had two advantages over our full size trucks; first you could haul whatever no matter what the weather. Being completely enclosed nothing would get wet or dirty in transport. Second you could lock whatever you had inside and avoid any theft or vandalism you would in an open-air truck bed.

One surprising feature of our van was comfort! The gray vinyl seats were supportive if a little cold on some mornings and were easy to clean. Even equipped very basically longer drives across the city was not a challenge. Ok, so radio that had a cd or even a tape player would have been nice but we could deal with tunes coming though the two door speakers. Oddly our van had remote entry along with power windows and locks, go figure. Remote entry with power locks is a nice feature to have with this van, Stretching across the van to open the passenger side door is near impossible and being able to unlock the rear doors with out fumbling for a key is a big plus.

I did wish our van had a few features that would have made driving it a little safer. First the cargo sliding door did not have a window. I know it is better for security this way (keep out peering eyes) but lane changes to the right are made just that more challenging. Another is lack of anything to catch flying cargo from hitting the front seat backs or your own noggin! No matter what you put in the rear most part of the van it ended up against the front seats before you arrived at your destination, at times with a hard punch… Ford did try to help with by lining the cargo area with some sort of rubberized plastic floor coating. If this were my own personal van I would install some sort of retaining hooks to tie down cargo to the walls or floor plus something to keep cargo from hitting the driver.

Mechanically the van gave us no trouble. It did have two areas of noted wear. First was the seam between the front passenger area and cargo area floor covering had split and was curling up. Second was the exterior bumpers, painted dull gray both front and rear bumpers had paint fading and peeling off exposing the black undercoat which lead to surface rust starting. Given that most people would purchase a van like this for utility over appearance only I doubt any effort would be invested in fixing this. This is affirmed by the numerous Ford vans I see driving around exhibiting the same issue.

Driving this beast around is not difficult so long as you are comfortable driving larger vehicles. Even with a V8 acceleration was ho-hum. It will get you there but not in any particular hurry. Visibility out the front is excellent thanks to the huge windshield; you have to rely on good mirror angles to achieve lane changes to either side. Braking like acceleration is adequate, not much more. I never did drive it fully loaded so I can’t comment what that would do to acceleration or braking. Ride was smooth enough with or without cargo. One co-worker noted the fan belt would start squealing if the van was driven though any depth of water. I noticed a black protrusion on the underside of the engine compartment that might be a liability if your drove the van over street curbs or otherwise rough terrain.

I was actually sad to see this unit retired from our fleet. I would recommend a look at cargo vans in general for a variety of professions and anyone in need of a dedicated hauler.