A new (to me) medium van....

[Pigeon_Droppings2]

no-ones gonna buy a Transit at VW prices

This was my thinking too ...but then I thought maybe the engines are VW but when I tried to dig online it seems like they're also using ford engines too?

It's probably a sound business strategy if they've worked out that their average buyer is just buying the badge.

 

[Turbo]

That's going to drive up prices of VW made transporters, as if they weren't high already!

 

[Wedg1e]

I believe the latest Caddy is a Connect in a posh (and over-priced) frock. Or maybe vice versa.

 

[m_c]

New Transporter is a basically a Transit Custom.
New Connect is basically a Caddy.

VW essentially screwed themselves over with dieselgate, so haven't had the money to redevelop vehicles, as the Transporter floorpan needed redeveloped to make it more suitable for electric options. The Custom also needed the floorpan redeveloped for electric, which is why Ford have been behind in the electric van race, just due to development cycles. Stellantis are ahead with electric vans, as it just so happened to redesign the Expert/Dispatch at the optimum time for electric use.
And Ford haven't really tried to be competitive in the small van market for a good number of years (anybody buying small vans purely on price, have historically bought French, as PSA/Stellantis have done cheap and cheerful pretty well for a while), so it wasn't really justifiable for them to redevelop the last Connect.

VW seem to be moving away from VW badged vans, as they're using MAN to push the bigger vans into the market, however their bigger vans don't exactly have a good track record, so there's probably an element of trying to get away from the VW Crafter legacy with a different badge.