How long does a Ford Nugget take to arrive?

8 months, 27 days, or 38 weeks, 3 days or 269 days.

Whichever way we reflect on the time between when we ordered the Ford Nugget and the day we collected her, it just doesn’t seem to show how much longer it actually felt. UK Covid Lockdown added to our emotions as we were not getting out much at all.

We had come to the sad conclusion a few weeks before that we had outgrown our wonderfully quirky VW T3 “Bellamy”. The yearly expanding rust wasn’t slowing down, and some white knuckle 25% decent’s convinced us that a new campervan would be a better fit with our future travel plans. ”More time in the Van than under it” was my mantra.

Back in September 2020, we placed the order for our Nugget. “It should be with you in around 14 weeks”, the happy sales team advised. Then we were van less from October, wanting to have space on the drive for the new arrival in Dec/Jan. We actually sold Bellamy quickly twice, but due to Covid Restrictions, the 1st buyers could not travel from Wales to collect her.

Then we got the news that the Nugget was delayed. I say “news”; however, we were prepared for it. We’d joined a German-based Nugget Facebook group and had been reading about some lengthy delays (months!) of European orders. The dealer had advised us that Covid and Brexit had impacted timescales, and they didn’t have a date for delivery at all now.

Then there were then several months with very little information being available from Ford or the dealer. Our monthly emails asking if there were any updates suddenly bore fruit. Our Nugget showed up as being at Westfalia for its campervan fit-out. We were relieved that it had made it out of the Turkish factory where Ford Transits are built. There are even more delays due to a global semi-conductor shortage causing the Ford Custom Transit Turkish production line to close. Ultimately it’s stopped Ford from taking any more Nugget orders at the moment to allow orders already in the system to be completed.

Then we got a date when it will land in the UK and timings from the dealer to add the tow bar before we could collect it. Happy days! Then the week of collection and unexpected issue with registering the Nugget threw our collection plans for the Bank Holiday weekend up in the air.

Thankfully at the final hour, the registration issue was resolved, I completed the paperwork yesterday and we can pick up our Nugget today.