Ford Transit Skyliner concept revives the ultra-luxury van

“Once you do stand-up, you don’t want to go back.”

No, we’re not talking about comedy, but rather an emerging trend in luxury transport that’s bringing us ever taller, more capacious, more pimpdillyicious limousines. The quote came from a Ford designer, Tim Stoehr, predicting an increase in interest in limos based on big vans like the new Transit. Of course, these are nothing new; up-fitters have taken quite kindly to the Mercedes-Benz Sprinter, and apparently Ford is chomping at the bit to get in on the action, too. So Ford enlisted the help of the largest Ford dealer in the world, Galpin Auto Sports in Van Nuys, Calif., to help design and build its first super-lux Transit concept, dubbed the Skyliner.

Unlike the glitzy behemoths seen pulling drunk coeds from bar to bar on Hollywood Boulevard on any given Saturday night, there’s not much special happening on the outside of the Skyliner Concept—no windshield header, side airbrushed romance novel graphics, no billet grille insert, no LED-lit ground effects—more or less, it’s just a Transit with a few gloss black accessories, two-tone silver paint, and some sweet, custom-designed 20-inch wheels.

Nothing on the outside quite prepares you, then, for what you encounter once you open the passenger sliding door and walk inside: hardwood floors, white padded leather walls, and a white lacquer floor-to-ceiling bar (of course) that could be perfectly at home on a Virgin American 757. Four VIPs can sit in a quartet of Galpin-designed Klingon thrones can arranged around a motorized folding table, conference style, or which can face forward to catch a movie or DirecTV. From a comfort standpoint, we’re not sure we’d want to be in those seats for a shotgun trip from L.A. to San Francisco — the cushions are too long and only the fronts feature motorized legrests — but as far as custom fabricated seats in a concept car go, they’re pretty cool. Entertainment is provided by a projector-style display with drop-down 52-inch screen and audio supplied by a Focal Utopia surround sound system with more hard drive storage than the Cray supercomputer. A trio of iPad Minis, one mounted between the third-row seats and two docked to the pillars for second row occupants, control all said goodies, as well as the motorized window shades and LED mood lighting.