So far in this series we’ve looked at medium panel vans and luton vans – two of the most popular types of rental van. In this post, I’m going to take a look at a different type of van that has become increasingly popular in recent years – the small van.

Small vans, from l-r: Renault Kangoo, Ford Transit Connect & Volkswagen Caddy

Small vans like these are available from almost all van rental companies and are surprisingly flexible and useful. Despite being no bigger than a medium-sized car on the outside, on the inside, their lack of rear seats and square load compartments means that they are bigger than you might think.

Here’s a typical example:

• Overall length: 4.4m
• Overall height: 1.8m (ok for car parks with height barriers)
• Loadspace length: 1.7m
• Load height: 1.1m
• Load width: 1.1m (between wheel arches) and 1.5m (outside wheel arches)
• Payload (carrying capacity): 600kg-800kg, depending on model

Speed Limits for Small Vans

Given that these vans are no bigger than a family car, you might expect them to be subject to the same speed limits as cars.

They aren’t.

Standard van speed limits apply to small vans like the Volkswagen Caddy, Ford Transit Connect, Citroen Berlingo and almost all other small vans, even if they have a maximum weight of less than 2,000kg (2 tonnes)

I’ve discussed the law behind van speed limits before (see here), but all you need to know is that these are the speed limits and they are enforced:

• Single carriageways: 50mph
• Dual carriageways: 60mph
• Motorways: 70mph

Introducing Car-Derived Vans

The only exceptions to these limits are for vans that are genuinely car-derived (i.e. they are based on a car and are the same as the car from the B pillars/seat belt pillars forwards) and have a maximum gross weight of under 2 tonnes.

In practice, this means that only the very smallest vans are exempt from van speed limts. Pretty much all of these are named after the cars they are based on, so they are easy to recognise. For example:

• Ford Fiesta Van
• Vauxhall Corsavan
• Vauxhall Astravan (this is unusually big for a car-derived van and is unique in the UK market)

Car-derived vans are available from some van rental companies but not all – they are so small that most people just use their cars to transport this kind of load, and don’t bother renting a van.