The mk1 Ford Transit originally came in a similar shade of grey as standard. The 60s were well before the advent of cost effective automotive aircon and customers were cooking.
It was actually becoming an impediment to sales so Ford changed tactic and made white the standard colour, on the basis that a customer that is still alive and that hasn't been roasted may become a repeat buyer. And thus the white van was born.
There is a difference. Daughter #3 has a dark blue 5.1 and that cooks as well. Because I wanted a van for sleeping and living in when on my travels and not for looking at I opted to go for white, and having borrowed our lasses van before buying im very glad I did.
Aah, I drove a white Transit Mk1 from a Company I worked for in the 80s, an I loved it. Was not my assigned van (that was a humble Escort minivan), but I got it sometimes for bigger installation jobs. It featured an electric "overdrive" gear button.
Sliding back the button on the gear lever top your 5th (or was it 4th?) would become a veeery long 6th. Ideal for Higway. Fantastic. No clutch involved!
OK, everything else on that old van was junk, especially the 20 minutes necessary to start it under zero C.
Indirect injection diesel...
Back on topic, both vans above were white, but merely for an economic reason , white being cheaper.
I guess other solid colors non metallized (that would require extra transparent layers) would probably been equally cheap, but for some reasons 90% of company vehicles were white.
I do not know if AC was even an option, nobody would even dream to have such luxury on a work vehicle. Insulation was also a meaningless word. We travelled by van until central Italy and when it was hot, you just sucked it up, like you did with snow and chains in the winter.
Nowadays, my (still white, by chance) T 6.1 AC system (with secondary exchanger) is so strong that the body color probably doesn't make a big difference running under the sun (and surely doesn't at night). For sleeping inside, proper ventilation is more important, as someone has already pointed out. Anyone tried to make a 6" hole on the bottom of the van to suck in some fresh air?
That, combined with a good top fan should make miracles.
