Van Guard News

Honda Adds New Type R to Civic LineupEurope’s largest van marque, Renault, will create a bespoke stand at this year’s Commercial Vehicle Show at the NEC, Birmingham, 24-26 April

The new Citroen Dispatch has just been released into dealerships. It comes with a long or short wheelbase and a low or high roof. It also comes with a choice of two different diesel engines but only comes with a manual gearbox. There is independent rear suspension on all models. Entry into the loading bay of the van compromises of two sliding side doors and two swing doors at the rear.

Honda is recalling all 2005 Odyssey Minivans and 2006 Ridgeline Trucks as well as a few cars as part of a global recall which will start in April. Last week, Honda recalled over 500,000 vehicles in China, however, only 30,000 of the vehicles recalled actually had the fault. It is thought that over 165,000 vehicles will be recalled from the USA and Honda are now looking into recalling vehicles from Japan.

A new survey has revealed the truth about notorious ‘White Van Men’. Apparently, 71% of ‘white van men’ believe that they are careful and considerate drivers but 74% don’t like the term that they are labeled.

The survey also revealed that the Ford Transit is the best known van for ‘white van men’ – Ford sold 57,000 last year.

Fiat have a new edition of the Scudo LCV which is about to released and available to purchase from £15,884. There are 18 versions of the van including commercial passenger versions and van versions.

Citroen have unveiled their new pick-up van called the Citroen Cruise Crosser but there are questions as to whether the Cruise Crosser will make it to the manufacturing line. It is based on the C-Crosser SUV which is due to go on sale in the autumn.

The Volkswagen Crafter has won the 2007 ‘What Van? Van of the Year’ awards. The van is the largest in the Volkswagen range and comes with either a four or five cyclinder engine and a six gear gearbox which can be changed to an automated manual transmission as an optional extra. It is also fuel efficient and has low emissions which all helped it to win this award.

The new Ford Ranger and Mazda BT-50 due out soon have had to be delayed until later in the month due to a fault that has been discovered in the rear differential.

The two models are very similar and are built on the same production line in Thailand, however, the fault is only thought to affect the 4×4 version.