Its not amazing how long the Eonoline, Express, and Ram Van survived. When you think about American tendencies in cost cutting, they make perfect sense. Do you realize that the Ford Econolines body panels were exchangeable from 1992 or so until 2008? Do you realize they used the modular engines from 1997 or so until, uh, well the cutaway chassis still does. American van users liked the idea of being able to canabalize a retired fleet vehicle for parts.
I remember looking at one in the early 2000s for my business. Yeah, the Sprinter was here for $27k or so... but you could get an Econoline 250 with a 5.4 V8 off the dealer lot for $16k if you knew how to haggle. I didn't buy it then... I got out of the business I was in at that time not long after.
But I did buy one. I bought a MY 2000 Econoline 250, in 2010, to do flea markets and the like. It had 176k miles on it, some significant body dents, and cost me $1600 OTR. After removing and scrapping the plumbing shelving and the roof rack, I got, hehe, $400 for the scrapped material- I'm not sure what idiot thought it prudent to leave aluminum shelving in the van when they sold it, but hey! So $1200. I charged the A/C ($150) and fixed the front brakes, ($300), and changed the oil once every 5000 miles (7 times, $300). I drove it to markets, I think overloaded (cotton and poly fabrics are insanely heavy) over the mountains of eastern PA for that entire time, before the transmission blew a gear, and the engine seized trying to limp home without that gear (I shoulda had the oil changed before I tried to get home!). I think it was the cheapest per mile I've ever owned a vehicle. I got $300 for the scrap metal. $1650 for 35,000 miles ain't bad.
Yeah, it was crude. It rattled. It banged. It wandered over the road like a lost puppy. But I also didn't care when it got into fender benders in tight markets, nor did the owners of similar products. If I was driving a new Sprinter, I'd probably have a coronary.
They were decent products, very well attuned to the financial ideas of middle Americans (which admittedly have made my near CPA mind do back flips, but we don't worry about imaginary customers, merely the ones we actually have) durable and generally reliable. Their refinement was nonexistent, but that is true of every under 10,000 gvw vehicle on the market until the Sprinter landed here. They existed sensibly in a market where the customer wanted certain things.