Performance: [1.9 TDI] 0-60mph 13.3s / Max Speed 103mph MAX PAYLOAD: 724-800kg
WHO’S THE CADDY?
Our Rating: 7.6 / 10
The Caddy Van has grown up, replaced its Polo underpinnings with those of the MkV Golf and now it really means business. Steve Walker reports…
You don’t have to be the kind of sports trivia anorak who can recite the post-war FA Cup winners in order or regale friends with precise details of history’s highest test-match batting averages to know that caddies and golf go together. No self-respecting pro golfer would set foot on the tee without a lackey to carry his enormous bag of clubs, offer occasional, tentative advice and fake an asthma attack when his opponent is putting.
Yes, in sport caddies and golf are inseparable but in Volkswagen’s product portfolio they were not. The original Volkswagen Caddy van was not, as many would have naturally assumed, based on the Golf hatchback. Instead, it had its roots with MkIII Polo – a smaller car and a sport which does not employ caddies of any description. Finally this Volkswagen faux pas was rectified. Today’s Caddy is founded on the much-lauded Golf MkV platform.
Being based on an altogether more substantial passenger car than its predecessor, you’d expect Today’s Caddy to be an altogether more substantial van and it is. As was the style at the time, the previous Caddy that arrived in 1996 was a hi-cube van. Identical to its passenger car forerunner from the B-pillars forward, it provided extra carrying capacity with an oversize squared-off box (the high cube) on the back. Today, ungainly hi-cube models have given way to the integrated style vans - of which the Caddy is one. What you get is a more deliberately sculpted vehicle with design continuity between the load area and the cabin. The underpinnings may be Golf but you wouldn’t necessarily know it from looking at the outside. This could not be said of the hi-cube Caddy which appeared to be, and was, a Volkswagen Polo with a metallic shed bolted on the back.
The current Caddy sports a pleasingly cohesive shape with curving lines around the rear, along the roof and down the bonnet representing a move away from the boxy construction of many equivalent small vans. Overall, the dimensions have increased when compared to the old model. The Caddy is now 17cm longer and 10cm wider, with the wheelbase measuring in at 8cm longer. Inside, with the aid of the more space efficient design, this translates to a 3.2m3 load volume a big increase on the 2.9m3 that owners of the previous Caddy have to play with.
If you want more space, there’s now also the option of a bigger version called the Caddy Maxi. This is 470mm longer than a normal Caddy van with 151mm of that accounted for by a longer rear overhang and 319mm squeezed into the wheelbase. It all makes for a vehicle of 4,875mm in length with a 4.2m3 load volume that’s up 1m3 on the standard van. The maximum payload is increased too. You can take around 720kg in a Caddy and 800kg in a Caddy Maxi.
A braked trailer capacity of up to 1,500kg is within the Caddy’s remit and pulling potential of this magnitude is rare in this sector. It’s the Caddy’s mass that allows owners to hitch-up such a big trailer. With gross vehicle weights between 2,205kg and 2,235kg, it’s a much heavier vehicle than any direct competitor – few vans of this size even approach the 2,000kg barrier.
News of the Caddy’s heavyweight status might set alarm bells ringing amongst buyers who fear that the vehicle could turn out to be a bit of a porker on the road. Fortunately, any such fears are unfounded. Don’t expect to be tailgating Porsche 911s down the autobahn fast lane but likewise, don’t worry about being passed by aging cyclists on long uphill sections. The engines are all diesel – one a workmanlike SDI unit, then a livelier 1.9 TDI and finally a higher-tech 2.0-litre TDI. The 68bhp SDI discharges a maximum of 140Nm of torque at 2,300rpm and the 1.9 TDI delivers 250Nm at 1,900rpm but it’s the 2.0 TDI’s 320
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