Volkswagen Caravelle

After 14 months on our long-term fleet, our hard-working Volkswagen Caravelle has finally gone back, leaving a hole that we will find difficult to fill. We have had very few complaints about the gentle giant of the VW line-up - but one thing we won't miss is cleaning it. Not only are there acres of panels to go over, but doing the roof is a ladder job, unless you play American pro basketball. (And before you tell us to take it to the service station car wash, not all can cope with the Caravelle.) It's the same inside, with eight seats to clean and more carpet than most living rooms.

Auto Express Car Reviews

By Kim Adams

June 2003

After 14 months on our long-term fleet, our hard-working Volkswagen Caravelle has finally gone back, leaving a hole that we will find difficult to fill. We have had very few complaints about the gentle giant of the VW line-up - but one thing we won't miss is cleaning it. Not only are there acres of panels to go over, but doing the roof is a ladder job, unless you play American pro basketball. (And before you tell us to take it to the service station car wash, not all can cope with the Caravelle.) It's the same inside, with eight seats to clean and more carpet than most living rooms.
But the pain of keeping it looking good is a pretty small price to pay for a car that does so many things well. Top of the list just has to be its ability to swallow huge amounts of gear - everything from sheds to sofas have been piled into the Caravelle, often with space left over.
It joined our fleet as the ideal paddock bus when Auto Express and a few of our lucky readers went racing in the Uniroyal Team Challenge. The VW has made the ideal base at circuits up and down the country, providing shelter and a touch of privacy when changing from civvy gear to race suit. Mind you, opting for the smoked-glass finish did initially cost us an additional ΂£719.75.
We have never ceased to be amazed at just what will go in the cavernous Caravelle, though - usually without cause to remove any of the seats. And that really is the key to understanding this true multi-purpose vehicle. It doesn't simply carry plenty of people or loads of luggage, but is capable of doing both at the same time.
We knew when we opted for the Caravelle that it would spend a lot of time on the motorway, so instead of the popular turbodiesel we went for the top-of-the-range 204bhp petrol V6 - a rare beast on UK roads. This unit puts the car into a different league, with twice as much power and lots more refinement than the oil-burning alternative. It's mated to a smooth automatic gearbox, so the driving experience is more akin to that of a mile-munching executive limo than a builder's workhorse. Okay, you can still detect that commercial heritage in the ride, but stab the throttle and the progress is nothing like a van's. Everyone who drove it came back raving about the acceleration.
Perhaps its 23,000 miles with us is summed up best by a marathon 20-hour blast from Cambridge to Hanover in Germany to deliver tyres for our annual test. We packed the Caravelle with 18 tyres and 16 rims, and you could see the weight in the rear suspension. Yet given its head on Germany's unrestricted autobahns, it easily topped 100mph.
Our biggest beef with the VW has been its fuel consumption. In the past few months, we managed to push the average just over 19mpg, but even that means a range of no more than 250 miles before you need to start looking to fill up.
Not much else kept the Caravelle off the road. We had a recurring problem with the emissions warning light, which eventually sorted itself out despite the best efforts of a couple of main dealers. The driver's side indicator also gave trouble occasionally, but reseating it in the housing sorted that. And despite the heavy hauling the car has been asked to do, the only sign of wear was on the driver's door handle, where the surface has worn in patches. Just before the 20,000-mile service, we replaced the two front tyres for ΂£210, while the check itself set us back ΂£252.95.
So our Caravelle has proved virtually trouble-free in one of the longest stays on our fleet. But all good things must come to an end, and we'll miss the big battle bus - especially on race days.