test drives

By Tim Saunders

How to transport eight people in luxury?

A conundrum for a large family or indeed business people. The answer: The Toyota Proace Verso Family Medium.

Toyota’s been making vehicles like this for quite some time. When I was at school a friend of mine came from a large family, who proudly owned a Spacecruiser, the equivalent of the Renault Espace at the time. The Proace is larger, more spacious and there’s greater luxury with its all round black leather seats, electric windows, air conditioning, rear privacy glass and even a cooled glovebox. But it doesn’t stop there because the front seats massage the driver and passenger and are also heated as is the rear bench seat. My wife Caroline has also discovered that the sliding doors can be opened from inside simply by kicking them in the nicest possible way.

To look at it’s basically a van with a sliding rear door on each side for easy access in tight spaces. But on further inspection it is a very cool van, reminiscent of the one used by the A-Team in that hit 1980s TV series. The middle row of three seats easily folds down and pushes forward allowing access to the rear three seats. This row of passengers also benefit from folding tables fitted to the back of the front seats. These tables are fitted with helpful straps that prevent water bottles from falling to the floor when tackling roundabouts.

When sitting inside the first thing you notice is that it is very high off the road. It is so high that it even dwarfs Range Rovers, VW Caravelles and an old Renault Espace we drive past. The black leather seats are comfortable and supportive and it’s quick to get the desired driving position thanks to the driver’s seat being electrically adjustable. It is necessary to reverse it off our driveway and I am used to many cars these days having a camera view to ease this manoeuvre. I am surprised that the Proace does not have one and makes do with beeps to alert the driver to any obstacles. I would feel more comfortable with a camera view due to the rear headrests obscuring the view out of the back window.

We take it for a spin down to Abbotsbury in Dorset expecting the 75 mile journey to take the usual hour and a quarter but the sheer volume of traffic more than doubles the journey time. Shocking. It is literally nose to tail all the way. But when you have no appointments to keep and there are good tunes on the radio, plenty of food on board, life is less stressful. As we watch motorists undercutting and trying to barge their way in front of others, we calmly move forward slower than a snail. The children are busy looking out for breakdowns, emergency vehicles with their flashing lights and keeping an eye out for naughty motorists who are glued to their phones when they should be focussing on the road.

The eight speed automatic gearbox makes light work of the continual stop start. There’s also an automatic cut off which is useful. The M27 is one of the most polluted roads in the UK and it really must be terrible during our journey. The air conditioning is working overtime as temperatures soar to 33 degrees Celsius outside.

Prior to driving this I was in an eighth generation VW Golf and surprised to find that it did not have a sat nav. The Proace does and it’s a user-friendly, efficient system.

It holds its own on the motorway and the cruise control is pretty reliable keeping up with the speed of the traffic, slowing down as required. There are occasions when the system just cancels out though with a warning sign flashing on the dashboard.

Often the speedometer is on the right and the revs are on the left. Not so in the Proace, which takes a little getting used to. There are plenty of cubby holes for storage in the front. Reading the user manual I discover that it is also possible to open the sliding doors with a kicking action of the foot underneath the rear bumper. Try as I might I can’t get this to work and leave the neighbours thinking I am just a little bit mad.

It’s an excellent vehicle for transporting families and extended families and if eight seats is too much, some of them can be removed and stored in the garage, making it an extremely versatile van. You can see how it could also be good for business travel. Its 69-litre fuel tank will allow it to travel around 500 miles.

Facts at a glance:

By Tim Saunders

A well established, steady and reliable vehicle.

That’ll be the Volkswagen Golf, now in its eighth generation. It sounds like a long established family when you put it that way. Actually 35m have been sold since it was introduced in 1974, one every 41 seconds or 780,000 a year! Now that’s a successful car.

It has always struck me as an aspirational car for many. My old boss drove a black Golf GTi and liked it a lot.

Externally this stylish new model looks a little more modern and crisp than its ancestors. The simple alloys show that this isn’t a fussy car either. It’s all about practicality and reliability. Looking at the boot I notice how it shares similarities with my 18 year old Ford Fiesta because the glass window on both goes right to the edge; there’s no metal frame down the sides. I’ve always liked that and it shows that this is quite a timeless piece of design.

Just opening the boot is enjoyable. Push the top of the large circular VW logo in and pull. This reveals a good size space and a steel space saving spare wheel. It is only on lifting the boot lid that you realise this model isn’t the top of the range because there’s no switch to push the boot lid down automatically, only an obvious space for where it would be.

Inside, the rear seats provide enough room for our three children. Harriett (9) is now tall enough not to require a car seat and so she sits in the middle of Henry (4) and Heidi (7) in theirs. They’re all comfy. There’s enough leg room for all of us and the driving position is as I expect; very good indeed. The Soul Maze cloth upholstery is comfortable.

This model, finished in dolphin grey metallic, is called a mild hybrid thanks to the use of clever technology which makes it more efficient than standard petrol models. It comes with a seven speed automatic DSG box, which is futuristic by design and there are paddleshifts either side of the steering wheel should more engaging driving be required. The whole dashboard is modern and digital. There’s a push button start in the centre by the gearbox and an electric handbrake. Our driveway slopes downwards a little and when engaging reverse and lifting the parking brake the car unnervingly rolls forward. This can be prevented though by engaging the hold button.

My children discover that there’s a neat drink bottle holder in the front centre console that moves into place by the push of a button. There are lights beside the external door handles; helpful for lighting the way at night. There’s all round electric windows, heated steering wheel, air conditioning and the children once again discover that if you pull the rear centre armrest down it is possible to open the plastic to reveal a hole, ideal for oars, skis or anything long and awkward. That air conditioning isn’t strong enough on a very hot day, though and the windows need to be down, too. There’s no sat nav so I use mine.

We drive to Surrey down the A3 where you can always be guaranteed to see both marked and unmarked police cars whipping up and down with their lights flashing. The children love to see this. The Golf has an intelligent cruise control that once engaged will go with the flow of the traffic. So if the car in front slows down so does the Golf and if it speeds up so do we. Not just that though because the system will alert the driver to the speed limit and if they take their foot off the accelerator it will slow down to the correct speed without any driver intervention. Clever stuff. Driving in the middle lane of the motorway a warning suddenly flashes up on the dash telling me to stay in the lane accompanied by beeping, which is off putting and not required but there doesn’t seem to be a way to turn it off. I can see that to some incompetent motorist texting on their iPhone as they drive (some motorists do this you know) this might be a necessary tool but not for me.

It’s an impressive car, comfortable and pretty economical delivering around 48mpg. So it will travel about 550 miles on a 50-litre tank of fuel.

Another trip sees us travelling down the A303 to Tiverton in Devon and it makes light work of it. Overall, it’s still the family hatchback to beat.