New Volkswagen Caddy: quality upgrade to trade favourite

The new Volkswagen Caddy drives down the road of evolution rather than revolution

NEW Volkswagen Caddy? What new Caddy, we hear you ask? Come on now, look carefully at the picture.

Yes it’s different from the old one.

Slightly.

What IS new about the Caddy Mark 4 is all under the metal and boy, is there a lot of it, as we’ll explain later.

As for the “new” looks, VW has gone for evolution rather than revolution, although the description of the new van in the press blurb did rather make us laugh: “The new design impresses, with sharper folds and clearly defined surfaces with stylish clarity.” Right.

Let’s put joking aside though, as while we know you want your vans to look smart and stylish – and the new Caddy scores on both counts – what really matters is build quality, reliability, cost-effectiveness and safety features. And the new Caddy has all this in spades.

We did start to believe that the new Ford Transit Connect had finally knocked off the Caddy’s crown as number one contender in the small van sector but with all this new stuff on offer we are now not so sure. It all depends on how many of the new safety devices come as standard and how many are paid-for options.

We won’t know this, or how much the Caddy will cost, until nearer its on-sale date, which is the last quarter of the year.

But we have already been to Marseille to drive the new van and came away hugely impressed with what’s on offer:

• In a nutshell, there will be short and long wheelbase vans
• Crewvans, and
• both Euro 5 and Euro 6 engines.

Euro 5 new Caddy will feature

• a 1.6-litre TDI unit on offer with 75bhp or 102bhp and
• a 2.0-litre engine with 140bhp.

Euro 6 new Caddy will feature:

• all 2.0-litre engines: 75bhp, 102bhp or 150bhp.
• The highest powered unit will be available with Volkswagen’s DSG auto-box. There will also be a 1.4-litre petrol engine available in Europe but as yet bosses haven’t decided whether to bring it to the UK.

The Euro 6 engines will cost more and all have AdBlue tanks which have to be filled every so often. But with fuel economy improving by up to 15%, any AdBlue cost should be recouped via reduced fuel bills.