Van-tastic

There must be a degree of a frustration when the sector your vehicle sells in is defined by the opposition. The Vauxhall Vivaro is a perfectly good van, but if I wanted to describe it to you any further I would say it is Transit-sized. And you would know exactly what I mean. It’s got three seats across the front, is driven by tradesmen the nation over and has a utilitarian dashboard with plenty of room at the base of the windscreen for a copy of The Sun. I don’t drive vans very often, but I borrowed this one from Vauxhall for a group of 10 of us to transport our camping gear to a music festival. It proved perfect for the task, in part because we could get one of those large trollies you see at garden centres into the back to help move our stuff at the other end. (I should say we didn’t steal the trolley, one of our number runs a nursery). The main issue when driving one is the lack of visibility when reversing; sure, there are door mirrors but it’s amazing how little use they are when you’re the size of a Transit – sorry, Vivaro – and have no rear view mirror. Ironically it had an optional extra called the Vision Pack (£100). Not sure what benefit that brought.