TOYOTA PROACE
Toyota’s Proace is the only van offered by the Japanese firm and shares almost every part with a French partner.
For a Japanese van, the Toyota Proace is really very French – almost 100% French, actually. The Proace is a van produced under partnership with Peugeot and Citroen, with the resulting partnership producing a number of commercial vehicles produced under varying brand names. The key thing to remember is, mechanically speaking, these are all virtually identical machines. This is no bad thing, though.
The Proace is based upon the Peugeot Expert, and more than a million of these have been produced since its debut in the mid 1990’s. While the Peugeot Expert is a common sight across Europe and is one of the continent’s most popular commercial vehicles, the Proace is less well known as it hasn’t been around for too long – only since 2013 to be precise. The van that has been produced as part of the commercial vehicle partnership also includes the Citroen Dispatch – known as the ‘Jumpy’ in Europe – and the new Vauxhall Vivaro.
In terms of dimensions, all the vans are the same size as each other, so one brand doesn’t hold any particular advantage here. The Proace, like the others, is fixed to a maximum loading height of 1,397mm and there are still 3 body lengths and 2 wheelbases to choose from. This gives the Proace range 3 different load volumes of 4.6, 5.3 and 6.1m³, with 3 gross vehicle weights of 2.7, 2.9 or 3.1-tonnes which provides 1,000, 1,200, or 1,400kg in maximum payloads. 1,628mm is the maximum loading width, while the maximum possible towing weight is 2.5-tonnes.
Power is supplied exclusively from 4-cylinder diesel engines - either 1.6-litre or 2.0-litre in capacity– and power produced by them ranges from 95 to 121bhp. A 5-speed manual will be found in the lesser-powered models, though the more powerful 121bhp engines get a 6-speed instead.
Toyota includes a good selection of equipment as standard for the Proace range, particularly when it comes to safety. Vehicle Stability Control (VSC), hill-start assistance and cruise control with an adjustable speed limiter are all supplied as standard, while touchscreen navigation, air conditioning and front and rear parking sensors can be found standard on other trim levels.