Volkswagen Transporter to ditch Ford underpinnings

Volkswagen has confirmed that it plans to change course on a decision to move the Transporter model to a Ford platform, with the next-generation version of the familiar model set to utilise a bespoke Volkswagen van platform that is currently in development.

The move will reverse one of the biggest changes in the Transporter’s 75-year history. The recently launched seventh-generation version, which landed in Australia in 2025, shares its platform with the Ford Transit Custom and is built by Ford in Turkey.

Volkswagen Commercial Vehicles is developing a new van architecture known as SPACE, which will be a heavy-duty adaptation of the wider Volkswagen Group’s forthcoming SSP modular electric vehicle platform.

A new Transporter, internally associated with the ‘SPACE B’ project, is planned for launch in the early 2030s, although the current Ford-derived model will continue on the market for several more years.

The decision marks a return to the approach Volkswagen employed across the prior six generations of Transporter, when its commercial and passenger van range shared a Volkswagen-developed foundation.

That arrangement ended abruptly with the seventh-gen Transporter, which shares much of its mechanical package with the Transit Custom under the same deal that saw the Amarok ute become a badge-engineered Ford Ranger.

Despite the Transporter becoming a Ford-based product, Volkswagen instead moved the Multivan passenger model to a beefed-up version of its own MQB passenger car platform, also used by the Golf and Tiguan.

The electric ID. Buzz models use a different architecture again – Volkswagen’s now seven-year-old MEB EV platform – while the larger Crafter van has a dedicated VW chassis.

Now, Volkswagen wants to reduce cost and complexity by bringing these different vehicles together on one platform.

“We need to reduce platform complexity, and we need to bring more volume per vehicle,” Volkswagen Commercial Vehicles chief executive Stefan Mecha told carsales in July.

The solution is called SPACE. It’s a new modular architecture that will support multiple sizes of Volkswagen van while allowing them to share much of their hardware and technology.

In a separate interview, Volkswagen Commercial Vehicles head of strategy Markus Wilke explained that future vehicle platforms would be “more about key components and less about the metal”.

Future versions of the Caddy, Transporter, Multivan and Crafter could retain distinct dimensions, interiors and intended uses, but they will share core electric powertrains, batteries and cabling.

Wilke confirmed that bringing the model families back onto common underpinnings was part of Volkswagen’s wider strategy to cut costs.

But Volkswagen’s decision to develop its next Transporter independently does not spell the end of its partnership with Ford.

The brands continue to collaborate on the Ranger and Amarok utes, and Volkswagen builds the Caddy-derived Transit Connect model for Ford.

Wilke indicated that further Volkswagen-Ford model sharing remained possible. It’s possible that Ford will choose VW’s SPACE platform to underpin its own next-gen vans.

It’s far too soon for Volkswagen to announce specifications, pricing or an Australian release date for the SPACE-based Transporter, though work on the platform itself is now well advanced and it is likely to launch later in the 2020s.

The current Ford-based Transporter will remain available in its current form into the early or mid-2030s, and even then, combustion models could overlap with their EV successors.

Volkswagen is also preparing electric Caddy and Crafter vans, with the Caddy EV likely to use an updated version of its current MQB platform, and the electric Crafter a likely candidate to launch the SPACE platform around 2029.

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