Comment: Otto van Driver
Love your driving? Do you dream about spending all day everyday behind the wheel? It's appealing, especially when the alternative is an interminable day of budget planning or policy discussions.
So who does get to live this dream? Ironically, people who drive the least exciting vehicles -- delivery drivers and couriers. And they're all but invisible until they are double parked across your driveway or suddenly veering across three lanes in front of you with no notice.
It's a dreary grind. Mostly low-speed crawls through the inner city, whipped along by impossible schedules, plagued by non-existent loading bays (or bays occupied by illegally parked passenger cars!), and often searching for some hard-to-find destination, despite the best efforts of the new-age superheroes: TomTom, NavMan and Garmin. Oops, there's Bognor Street back there...
Delivery driving and couriering parcels around the city in a white van is a lot less glam than even tooling around the city in a made-for-fun utility -- the innovative indigenous Aussie alternative. With their wide alloys and even wider paint scheme, not to mention a mobile version of the Myer Music Bowl sound system, they are really two-seater sports jobs with plenty of luggage space. Not real working wheels anymore. Just ask Mr VE Holden.
Wasn't always that way, though. Back when V8s required refuelling on a daily basis and new rear tyres were factored into the monthly budget, a locally-made Ute turned into panel van was machismo on wheels. Now the quick Sandman has sunk without trace and even the dear old Ford divvie van is a decade past its prime, so what's a Tonne-Up Tony supposed to drive?
The answer appears to be a car-derived vannette from Europe.
Holden started this florist's fiesta with the Combo, a Barina-based buggy that ballooned with successive generations into something much more guppy-like.
Citroen added a dash of Gallic charm with Berlingo, and Renault and VW chimed in with Kangoo and Caddy, the latter attempting to shed its work-a-day whites for colourful weekend family fun thanks to a version featuring a second row of seats and some windows in the side panels. Oh, and it comes in other colours.
For a while, Berlingo was the French brand's largest selling model here. And now Otto presumes Holden has Combo Plan B ready to go seeing as how Barina is sourced from Daewoo not Opel.
Interestingly, the Japanese eschew car-derived vanning. There's no Yaris or Jazz or Maz2 with a big metal bubble and split barn doors on the back.
A clue is found at Chez Mitsubishi. You'll remember the L300 from Days of Yore. Now named Express (despite its arthritic 2.4-litre petrol motor with a whole 188Nm of torque on tap), it comes replete with new bumpers and, er, that's it. Airbags and ABS not included. It's priced at $23,490, except that even the Mitsubishi website has them at $19,995. Haggle a bit and you might drive a one-tonner away for under $21,000.
On the Darwinian scale -- philosophically rather than geographically-speaking -- the Express hails from the dawn of time, but still outsells all but the equally timeless HiAce.
In its favour, Toyota's truck is about seven generations more advanced than the Mitsubishi. Interestingly, when updating the semi-bonneted much more modern WA-series Express 'Walk-Thru' in 2004, Mitsubishi's blurb stated: "Considering the occupational health and safety aspects of a professional driver that is constantly on the road day in and day out, the provision of ABS and airbags are highly desirable duty of care items for all van owners."
Sadly the Express Walk-Thru is gone, leaving only the SJ Express to uphold brown box barrowing duties for the three diamond brand.
Toyota's HiAce and the Mitsubishi Express account for around 53 per cent of the segment, presumably patronised by fleet buyers. But Aussie owner-drivers, it seems are a little more discerning when it comes to their personal comfort, and perhaps, safety. A plethora of European product is now available in this larger one-tonne capacity van market -- a marked change to a decade ago when the Japanese and to a lesser extent, the Falcon Van were in vogue.
Ford's new Turkish-built Transit proudly bears a precision milled badge on its rump declaring its pride at being voted European Van of the Year 2007, while VW's Transporter, Mercedes-Benz's Vito (IVotY 2005) and Renault's Trafic continue to make inroads into the Plain White Wrapper market for delivery vehicles.
Ironically, again, Mercedes-Benz gets the kudos for turning our heads from the Japanese brands to greater Eurocentric purchasing, although early on, this was via the Korean-sourced MB 100. Ah yes, the car industry is a convoluted beast.
Vanners were keen for a Three-Pointed-Starred office and when the MB 100 passed on, they quickly joined the Vito club, which further galvanised sales of that vehicle. S-Class owners of course were overjoyed to be queuing with Mr White Van Man in the service department while retrieving their limousines.
Recently, Transit has been renewed and is available in front or rear-wheel drive (though apparently automatic transmission versions are not in transit), VW's Transporter range has expanded to include the Citivan and latterly Renault has invaded with one of Europe's favourites. Holden gave some thought to its badge engineered version, Vivaro (IVotY 2002) while Peugeot threatened to add some van blanc named Boxer, though neither eventuated.
Full-size European vans offer car-like features such as ABS, EBD and ESP, and decent seats, not to mention a brace of airbags here and there and something substantial in the way of a nose-mounted crumple zone. (Express drivers may like to look away at this point.)
Hyundai will enter the action soon with a Vito-sized (and styled) all-new H1. Hyundai has, to date, refrained from any true commercial action here, allowing Kia a brief moment with the diesel-engined Pregio.
Without the benefit of a handy Carbon Dating machine we're unable to determine if Pregio pre-dates Express, but either way, Aussies quickly fell in with Pregio's offer of torquey diesel motor and affordable price compared to Toyota's HiAce.
Only Korea's refusal to clean up tail pipe emissions drove it from our shores. A shame as it also came in bright yellow, where Express offered only chameleon-like Beige as an alternative to white, presumably to blend in with the van's contents. Snappy.
Spurring Hyundai is news that Toyota's 41 per cent share of the van market has crumbled to just 36 per cent year-to-date compared with the same period in 2006.
While the H1 might appeal to fleet operators, owner-drivers will no doubt be content to recline in their Mercedes-Benzes and munch their Subway Veggie DeLite.
The burning question is, how will the H1 appeal to HiAce customers? Maybe it comes in yellow.
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