ROADTEST
Page 49
If you've noticed an error in this article please click here to report it so we can fix it.
DUCAT° TURBO
• Since publication, some prices may have increased. Readers are advised to contact their local dealer or the manufacturer far full details.
which is 73% up on last years figure and represents about 1.6% of the 1.8 to 3.5tonne light commercial vehicle sector over the same period.
This year the company sees its task as making good the changes to the dealer network it made last year. Although the volume of sales will be low (about 35 units per dealer per year), the service element is seen as important, especially as the total number of Ducatos rises.
• BODYWORK
In some ways the Ducato represents the quintessence of modern thinking on van design. A small, high-revving, turbocharged, direct injection diesel engine, driving the front wheels through a fivespeed gearbox, with a 3.5-tonne gross weight high-cube body shape, makes the Ducato Maxi Turbo D the top-of-therange model in the Sevel-built stable.
The front-wheel drive gives the van a low load bed height (560mm laden) compared with rear-wheel-drive opposition like the VW LT 35E (695mm unladen), and the Freight Rover Sherpa 350 LWB van (690mm unladen). It also has very good access to the load bed with 270% rear doors that extend to the top of the roof line on the Maxi derivative, and a sliding door on the nearside.
The payload is an excellent 1,680kg, nearly the same as the diesel Transit's 1,665kg and 180kg higher than the VW LT 35E's 1,492kg.
In spite of this the van does not look like the state of the art model that it appears to be on paper. The small bonnet is similar to that of the old-style Ford Transit, and a look at the replacement model Ford serves only to confirm that the Ducato is a square-sided van with dated looks.
Fiat counters this by saying that the Ducato is now over six years old; improvements have been built in during that time, and furthermore neither the Transit or the VW have front-wheel-drive. Nick Spratley, Fiat's UK marketing man, adds that the Peugeot/Fiat Sevel factory may well be giving the Sevel body a facelift within 18 months.