I caught this trio parked nearby a dredging and sand extraction site in the river forelands. Three Peugeot Partners from the same generation, year of first registration -from left to right- 2010, 2013 and 2011.
These are powered by PSA’s 1.6 liter HDi inline-four turbodiesel; 90 DIN-hp for the green van, 75 DIN-hp for the other two.
The Peugeot Partner and its Citroën Berlingo twin are operating in the same commercial vehicle segment as the Ford Transit Connect and the Fiat Doblò (aka Ram ProMaster City). Other direct competitors are the Volkswagen Caddy and Renault Kangoo.
Typically, such compact panel vans are used to transport the driver and his/her tools needed for the job, both in urban and rural areas. As a matter of fact, many farmers use them as a handy runabout.
The current Partner and Berlingo generation was introduced last year.
It speaks for itself that the Opel Combo is now fully based on the PSA van, the previous Combo generation was a rebadged Fiat Doblò. Oh yes, Toyota will get its own edition of the PSA product soon: the Toyota ProAce City.
I wonder why they don’t call it the ProAce City & Countryside.
I’ve driven a passenger Berlingo and found it brilliant. It is a LOT like Paul’s xB, except I think the xB is faster given the diesel that my Berlingo was. However, around the traffic choked Nice area speed was irrelevant, low speed fuel mileage, comfort, and ease of parking are of much greater importance which the Berlingo delivered on.
Great little vanlets or whatever they are classified as, the Ford does pretty well over here, the Ram not so much and the Nissan/Chevy twins are pretty sad-looking and also not huge sellers. I suppose it’s not surprising there isn’t more competition but they are a great option. Weird to find three belonging to different trades or whatever in one spot like you did with nothing else around. Perhaps it’s an open-air chop shop and this is the first night’s haul…
There must have been a connection to the dredging and sand extraction site I mentioned. Just simple deduction from my side:
Zandwinning (on the white van) = sand extraction
Baggerbedrijf (on the green van) = dredging company.
There’s a small device on the roof of the anonymous blue Partner, don’t know what is. Maybe a GPS related thingy. It also has fully blinded cargo door windows, unlike the others.
Looks like a small led lightbar on the roof.
After watching Ronin several dozen times now, I can’t look at a white one of these without seeing Stellan Skarsgard crouched in the back with a computer screen and a headset and Deirdre wiping her hands on a rag while looking at the engine.
A mate of mine has a C4 with that 1600cc twincam diesel its an absolute rocket with go cart handling and all the creature features, it averages 4.7L/100kms no matter how or where its driven, great little engines, you can see why everyone uses a PSA platform and powertrain for their vans and some small FWD cars.
My brain sees 3 vans in different colors sitting in a field, and decides it must be a Top Gear challenge.
Now that you mention it….
Interesting that until just a few years ago, this type of vehicle was unavailable in the US and would have been considered an oddity, but since the launch of the Transit Connect and then RAM and Nissan /Chevy counterparts, they have become very common. And while the Nissan clearly lags the other two in sales here, it’s not an uncommon site. Perhaps these are the modern equivalent of 2 door Falcon panel wagons
I like them.
It’s funny that folks think the Chevy City Express still exists. They sold so few that none of you noticed they stopped selling them. There’s going to be a new Transit Connect for ’21, and it appears there will be some sort of pickup variant. Ford has re-trademarked the Courier nameplate, originally used on sedan deliveries and later on the Mazda rebadge. Interesting times ahead
There was a Ford Fiesta based panel van many moons ago, also called the Courier.
The current Ford Transit Courier, see below, is smaller than the Transit Connect, the Peugeot Partner and such.
Tired of waiting for the arrival of a decent van in North America , I ditch the rear seat
& plastered the rear windows of my Rav4 ’13 . Nissan out , cause Jatco reliability , Transit made in Turkey , non merci . Looking at the offer on the Honda , Toyota jdm website, all this just makes me drool and lets me think that the american consumers is mentally retarded with his pickup trucks .https://www.japanesecartrade.com/type-make/van-minivan-16-honda-3.html