Four wheel drive vans aren’t common – mostly because hardly anyone needs one (although I know that doesn’t stop people buying 4×4 cars…)

There are a number of 4×4 vans on the market, all of which are sold in limited numbers, mostly to businesses that need their vans to be able to get safely off road from time to time without getting stuck or sacrificing carrying ability. The armed forces are also regular customers, as are emergency services in some rural areas.

Here are a few examples of four-wheel drive vans that are currently on the market:

• Mercedes Sprinter 4×4
• Ford Transit AWD
• Volkswagen Transporter 4Motion (older 4×4 models were called Syncro)
• Iveco Daily 4×4

There have been a few others over the years, but I think that these are the only mainstream medium/large van models offering a four-wheel drive option at the moment.

The main downside of any four-wheel drive system, of course, is cost. It costs more to buy, there is more to go wrong and it uses more fuel.

Since van operators are conscious of costs in a way that private car owners are not, businesses will never buy 4×4 vans unless they have a genuine requirement for them. That means that the number of 4×4 vans available from daily rental companies in the UK is somewhere close to zero.

I’m sure there might be a few – but you won’t get them from mainstream van rental companies.