| Archive for The Motor Forum talking cars since 2006 |
| Jasper |
One for Mrs Kraftwerk. Volkswagen Transporter Sportline.Born in response to the awful Transit with the cobra strips, the Sportline arrives in Britain as a 174BHP panel van in either Red, Silver or Bad boy Black, before undergoing the transformation to Sportline spec.This involves, colour coding of the bumpers, door handles, mirrors, front and rear spoilers. Chrome side rails, top and bottom grilles as well as lowered suspension matched perfectly to the lovely 18'' alloy wheels. I have to say walking up to the vehicle does give you a big feel good factor as it's presence is huge, if, for my tastes, a little OTT. 
Jumping up into the leatherlined interior is a mixed bag, the seats are really good quality and very comfortable but with a stock dash and door panels, you have to appreciate the basic VW qualities of excellent build quality and overlook the rather workman like appearance. VW is still fitting the very friendly blue/red instruments to these (why they're changing these on the cars is anyones guess), so at night it looks great  It's adequately speced with aircon, elec windows and mirrors, cd player and remote locking.
The 5 cylinder engine bursts into life with a burble. The massive wall of torque means only the most floppy footed could fail to get a clean getaway. Once on the move all the controls fall easily to hand with the gearlever a palm width from the wheel and all six gears are easy to find. When it comes to ride and handling it does help to remember it is a van. But as vans go it is very good, the handling with the massive 235 tyres is sticky with a capital S and the only time it wants to plough straight on is under heavy throttle out of corners. One problem with the seats is a design big enough to fit a workies bum on, which, even with my substantial arse on, still leaves plenty of room to slide about. The ride is firm and a little jiggly from the rear but a load I'm sure would help this. The main event however is the engine. With 174 BHP and 400 N/m (295 lb/ft in old money) it's not short of oomph, town driving is a joy with great visibility and the ability to leap from low to high speeds with little effort and the quattro-esque noise it makes only makes me think of one thing. EMCW. Cruising at speed it's all too easy to drift well above the speed limit such is the refinement of the engine. Tyre roar at speed is an issue but easily overcome with better insulation if needed. for me the best compromise would be a Kombi, with five seat and a rear bulkhead to keep the noise down. The £25k price tag for this van is a lot and if it was your only vehicle it's also totally impractical (unless you only have two friends) but as a second vehicle for somebody that occasionally needs to transport heavy/bulky items in style it's hard to beat and only the same price as a full spec R32. Would lose less money and with 30-35MPG the norn, cost less day to day. 
Come to Scotland, it's sunny.......sometimes. |
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| kraftwerk |
Mmm, I have opined to Joe that she should spend some of her wedge on one of these. Thus far to deaf ears. Thanks for the write-up, Jasper - let's see if it does any good. | ||||
| BeN |
Damn. We really should have these here....
Instead we get really tiny Daihatsus that pretend to be hot hatches. |
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| scamper |
Oh yes.
We tentively looked at these last autumn. Laura loves `em. However a) i thought they were closer to 30k and b) do they have 4wd? From my point of view i think they qualify as a van under Company Car tax which is therefore a flat £3k benefit or there abouts. I recall there are two versions - sliding doors as above and one with side windows and fold away rear seats? |
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| Jasper |
A Kombi is the one fitted with windows and rear seats and you're right, they are knocking on the door of £30k. The one I borrowed retails at just under £26k.
I think with the Kombi's you need to get one with a payload on one tonne for it to qualify as a van. |
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| PG |
Yes, if it has more than a front rown of seats, it's the one tonne payload that is critical for BIK and company tax write offs as a van. I'm told the the IR have a list of accepted vehicles somewhere on their web site. Does the van come with the option of an auto gearbox? |
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| TimR |
I held one of these up on the motorway last year while I was in the Fiat.
As he'd come up behind me pretty quick I thought I'd try and keep up after he got held up by someone else. From 70 to 110* the VW was as fast as the Fiat in top gear and after that I let it go. *Km/h of course. |
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| Jasper |
Not fitted to a Sportline but with that engine, yes. |
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| scamper |
Buggered if I can find this list. |
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| PG |
Try this VAT stuff - http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/vat/reclaim-cars-motoring.htm Although the list is car derived vansand VW are not mentioned at all ! I'm thinking that if it passes the other test of - Combination vans These vehicles look like vans, but have seats for carrying passengers or are designed to have them fitted behind the front row of seats. We'll consider them to be commercial vehicles if either or both of these conditions are true: They are vehicles with a payload of more than one tonne after the addition of the extra seats The dedicated load area - that is, that load area which is completely unaffected by the additional seating - is larger than the passenger area, so as to make the carriage of goods the predominant use of the vehicle you should be OK with it as a van. |