2010 Ford Transit Connect: Dual rear cargo doors open up at a standard 180 degrees, or an optional 255 degrees, providing easy access to its 135 cubic feet of cargo space.

• Ford takes an innovative “mobile showroom” featuring the 2010 Transit Connect to Sam’s Club locations offering test drives to consumers
• Consumer outreach also includes visits to individual businesses and sponsorship of small business conferences this spring and summer
• Transit Connect advertising campaign launches in June with emphasis on the vehicle’s broad appeal to a wide variety of small businesses

Test Drive a Ford Transit Connect, Win One

DEARBORN, Mich., May 13, 2009 – Ford Motor Company announced today a comprehensive consumer campaign to put some 3,000 small-business owners in 13 major cities behind the wheel of the 2010 Transit Connect commercial van – even before the vehicle reaches dealer showrooms this summer.

The multi-part “Transit Connect Across America” campaign kicks off on May 17 in Washington, D.C. at the National Small Business Week conference and includes:

• Test drives with consumers at Sam’s Club locations in 13 cities around the country as well as individual drive experiences at small businesses
• Sponsorship of small business conferences
• Print advertising campaign in the June issue of business publications

“Transit Connect is a brand new vehicle for small businesses in the United States,” said Len Deluca, Ford’s director of Commercial Vehicles. “We call it a ‘white space’ vehicle because there is nothing else like it on the market. With its unique combination of great capacity, compact size and fuel economy, the Transit Connect will appeal to business owners who have had to make do with other vehicles that weren’t just right.”

By partnering with Sam’s Club, the nation’s leading small business warehouse club, Ford is offering customers an opportunity to drive the Transit Connect over a pre-planned course designed to highlight the vehicle’s maneuverability and usefulness. The drives will be set up under tents in the parking lots of 13 Sam’s Clubs across the country.

Ford also will showcase Transit Connect to some small-business professionals at their places of business. Additionally, Ford will feature the vehicle at two major conferences this summer including the National Small Business Week, hosted by the Small Business Association, in Washington, D.C., May 17-19, and the Women in Business National Conference and Business Fair in San Francisco June 9-11.

Another aspect of the new vehicle’s marketing campaign is its unusual print advertising, launching in key business magazines and on Web sites in June. The ads underscore the vehicle’s versatility and capability, including its generous payload capacity – which in certain models is 1,600 pounds. The initial creative executions illustrate diametrically opposed small businesses – a pastry chef and a personal trainer – both claiming that Ford was “thinking of me” during the vehicle’s development. Transit Connect’s applicability to diverse commercial uses comes together with the tagline, “specific for everyone.”

The advertisements will appear in Entrepreneur, Fortune Small Business, Inc., Business Week: Small Biz, Catering and American Painting Contractor.

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About Ford Motor Company
Ford Motor Company, a global automotive industry leader based in Dearborn, Mich., manufactures or distributes automobiles across six continents. With about 205,000 employees and about 90 plants worldwide, the company's automotive brands include Ford, Lincoln, Mercury and Volvo. The company provides financial services through Ford Motor Credit Company. For more information regarding Ford's products, please visit www.ford.com.