Nissan NV200 FridgeVan
What is it?
The Nissan NV Fridge Van is exactly what its name says it is – a specially converted version of Nissan’s NV200 van fitted with a refrigerated load compartment.
The interior is lined with moulded polyester-polyurethane panels, a set-up designed to provide high thermal efficiency without eating too much into the available space. The target market is businesses that need to make fresh food deliveries in urban areas.
Nissan’s partner in the Fridge Van project is Gruau, which has a conversion facility near Barcelona, close to the plant that builds the NV200. Cooling units from two different manufacturers, Carrier (as fitted to our test vehicle) and Diavia, are available.
The Fridge Van can be plugged into a 230V socket to keep the contents cold overnight, and there’s a temperature indicator and control unit in the cab that allows conditions in the refrigerated compartment to be monitored.
What’s hot?
- Considering its capabilities, the NV200 is not particularly expensive, with prices starting at £19,370
- There’s a choice of two different configurations; the standard Fridge Van, which has a pair of opening rear doors, and a version with an additional sliding side door which, at £19,670, costs slightly more
- Buying an already converted vehicle directly from a big manufacturer such as Nissan may give more peace of mind than buying an after-market conversion; the standard three-year Nissan warranty also covers the insulated cell and the cooling unit.
- The Fridge Van retains most of the driving qualities of the standard NV200 van, which is a very wieldy vehicle for a load carrier, with car like on-road behaviour and a comparatively narrow (1.69m) body that can easily be squeezed through gaps in urban traffic
- The NV200’s 1.5-litre Renault/Nissan engine, which is fitted to a huge range of passenger cars as well as vans, is refined and torquey for its size.
What’s not?
- The two different cooling units, which are mounted on the roof, are comparatively compact, but the Diavia unit is larger and adds more to the Fridge Van’s height, so it may be worth checking for clearance on tight urban entrances and archways. On the other hand, the Diavia unit is slightly lighter, and can cool to -10C, while the Carrier unit cools to zero.
- The interior of this van!
Business Vans review verdict
The Nissan NV200 Fridge Van is a very neat conversion. The exterior is largely unchanged compared with the standard NV200 save for the cooling unit protruding from the roof.
The NV200’s car-like manoeuvrability is largely unaffected by the conversion, despite a weight penalty of about 150kg for the insulation cells that line the load area, and 65.7kg for the Carrier cooling unit or 62.5kg for the Diavia unit.
With prices starting at £19,370, the NV200 should find its niche in the UK market for urban fresh food deliveries.
What you need to know
On the road price ex VAT (as tested) | £19,370 (£19,670 with side door) |
Load length | 1736mm |
Load width (max) | |
Load height | 1152mm |
Load capacity | 2.2 cubic metres |
Payload | 650kg |
GVW | 2000kg |
Towing capacity braked/unbraked | N/A |
Engine | 1.5-litre 4-cyl turbodiesel |
Power/Torque | 89PS |
Economy (combined) | N/A |
CO2 emissions | N/A |
Leave A Comment