Category: Large MPV 
Price Range: £20,295 to £35,640
Airy, solidly-made interior, versatile seat-sliding ability, excellent air conditioning, refined V6 diesel, very easy gearchange on manual versions, lots of storage space, quiet ride, crisp handling in four-cylinder versions.
V6 versions feel a bit clumsy, long-wheelbase Grand version's boot is smaller than before, too many hard plastic surfaces, rear seats are heavy and awkward to remove, expensive.
A highly individual MPV with a huge engine choice, but it doesn't seem much of an advance over the previous model.
An enormous glass area and accurate steering together make the hefty Espace feel smaller than it is, so it's easy to thread through traffic. The driving position is quite car-like, with a lower, more vertical steering wheel (adjustable for rake and reach), and the seat is set lower in relation to the pedals, although you do still sit above the pedals as if in a van.
Switches are clear and smooth-acting, the automatic parking brake works well, and the digital LCD instruments are easy to read apart from the insignificant bar-graph rev-counter. If you specify the optional Carminat sat-nav, you have to take your eyes a long way from the road to see the screen, which lives inside a glovebox above the main central facia bin.
The Grand Espace's extra length and weight don't make it any harder to drive, but it is a little less agile.
The steering is positive and well-weighted, and the ESP system helps rein in any tendency for the nose to run wide without intervening too abruptly. The Proactive mode of the automatic transmission works well, too, and makes the V6 petrol Espace more fun than it would otherwise be. All those gears - six in the manual, five in the auto - add to driving amusement, too.
Depends on the model. Most impressive is the 2.2 dCi, a torquey diesel which makes the most of its six-speed transmission to outpace the C8/807 with the same sized engine. It pulls with fair energy from very low revs, too.
The V6 turbodiesel, though very smooth and quiet apart from a start-up clatter, doesn't feel much livelier, and the V6 petrol engine's 245bhp is not all obvious.
The turbocharged 2.0 petrol engine provides more than adequate overtaking strength and would be the petrol engine of choice.
The 2.2 dCi's balancer shafts make for a smooth power delivery, but there's some old-school diesel growling, as if some loose parts are being thrown around the cylinders, when you feather the accelerator.
