02 Apr 08
Newly blinged-up, I got on with enjoying life with the Caravelle, allowing it to do what it does best - carrying a large number of people in high levels of comfort.
So office trips to the pub aside, the Caravelle has recently been acting as something of a load-lugger, transporting various members of the 4Car team's families to such glamorous destinations as Ikea and pressed into wedding duties, carrying the full complement of the Mahoney clan to a mate's nuptials in the West Country.
The M4 at the best of the times can be an appalling place to spend time, but this particular Friday afternoon stretched my sense of humour to almost breaking point. A combination of rain, fog, hail and freezing temperatures, plus heavy nose-to-tail traffic, turned what should have been a gentle two-hour journey into a three-hour-plus epic.
Not that my passengers minded: they were stretched out enjoying series five of Curb Your Enthusiasm on the new DVD player, thanks to the Caravelle's space, fine ventilation, comfortable seats and unrivalled space. Quite frankly, nothing beats it: but, then again, with its minibus proportions, nothing should.
But it wasn't all good news. At motorway cruising speeds, the VW needs a surprising amount of steering corrections to keep it on the straight and narrow, while the ride is particularly jarring and van-like over expansion joints. Handling, too, is a world away from the sublime S-Max we ran before, with little finesse when the bends finally arrived and plenty of body roll.
To its credit though, so far the Caravelle has proved far easier on the wallet than the thirsty Ford. On our run to Bristol we returned a creditable 32mpg on the run to Bristol, despite the full load and stop-start traffic.
