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THE RETURN JOURNEY Most of the return journey, two days
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later, was in daylight, which helped to reduce tiredness. Apart from a quick plate of currywurst, a pitstop for a second tank of fuel and the wait to load onto Eurotunnel (now back up to two an hour), plus an unscheduled halt while a van burnt out in another set of German roadworks, the trip from Hanover to Crawley via Beckenham was non-stop.
That you could even consider a near non-stop drive of 550 miles in a mass-market panel van is a tribute to the state of the market today. Although the luxury driving seat was fine on the motorways, we had the feeling that a lack of lateral support might have been apparent on more twisty roads. There was never any shortage of storage space, even without imposing on the second row of seats. The two bins on the right-hand end of the dash are likely to be used for mobile phone holding, and as such would benefit from some internal padding. The audio system's simple Bluetooth interface is one of the best we've encountered, easy to set up and reliable to use.
This latest example of the Transit is undoubtedly the best ever, not only in its own right, but also relative to the rest of its competition. The 2.2-litre engine fitted to front-wheel-drive models is still not the quietest or most refined on the market, but its flexibility and response throughout the whole rev range are highly impressive —the five gears are quite enough.
We don't expect many of our readers to experience its ton-up qualities, but the fact it can attain these speeds safely indicates the reserves of performance, handling and braking available for less extreme use. The newly specified ESP (an option on our van but standard from 2007) increases these reserves still further.
We wouldn't want to repeat this commute on a daily basis, but we tell asleep at the end of it with a new respect for the Transit.