On the move for business or pleasure? You’re guaranteed to have the best seats available in the VAG (Volkswagen Audi Group) Sportline Transporter Black Edition Kombi van.
With record fuel prices, and ever spiralling insurance and maintenance costs, it’s a real challenge for many small building companies these days to keep one vehicle on the road, let alone having the luxury of owning an additional family saloon for weekend outings. Perhaps not surprisingly then, we are seeing more and more tradespeople consider an option that would have previously passed them by — the Kombi van.
To all intents and purposes, it represents a functional weekday workhorse, but with the option of three rear passenger seats which can be easily removed and repositioned depending on the daily requirements. And, even with the seats in situ, there is still plenty of useable space for tools and materials, or the sort of paraphernalia which goes with typical family excursions.
Most of the major vehicle manufacturers now have a Kombi version within their medium light commercial van offering, but few have taken the concept as far as VAG with its latest top of the range Transporter Sportline T32 Black Edition. It’s a real statement piece – which you would expect at a little under £60,000 including VAT on the road price – but for that hefty investment you get a level of style and performance which will be the envy of many top of the range five-seater SUV’S. Plus, there is a healthy workable payload of 1,039kg and plenty of useable storage compartments for five fully grown adults who can enjoy well upholstered Nappa leather and Alcantra with red contrast stitching seats and a coil spring-based suspension system not found on any standard LCVs.
The 2litre TDI Diesel bi turbo with intercooler common rail direct injection engine will produce a top speed of 126 mph and 0-62 in just under nine seconds although at that sort of pace you will clearly struggle to get anywhere near a claimed mpg of 37.2. There’s far too many driving gizmos and safety features to list here (we counted 35 on the press pack), suffice to say that VAG have thrown everything their technical boffins currently have at their disposal in the direction of the Black edition to make it almost certainly the best equipped drive away from the dealership van currently available.
Looking after such a highly priced and prized vehicle would give most builders we know nightmares, of course, and somehow you can’t see it being loaded up on a regular basis with bags of cement and the general detritus which comes from a busy day on site. Heck, we were even dismayed to see it covered one morning in fine Sahara sand which had blown in overnight! For so called clean trades such as plumbers, sparkies and joiners, however, the appeal will be much greater and a real statement of a business clearly going places in some speed, style, and comfort. That’s some Kombination!
For further information on the Transporter Sportline T32 Black Edition visit https://www.autotrader.co.uk/cars/volkswagen/transporter/sportline-black-edition