What is it
Now I see why courier drivers often stop in inconvenient places. When you're driving a van that's about 5.4m long and 2.3m high, there aren't that many places to park.
Our tester is one of Toyota's 10 variants of Hiace commercial van, here with three seats, five doors and a 3.0-litre four-cylinder turbo diesel engine mated to a five-speed manual transmission driving the rear wheels.
The 100kW peaking at 3400Nm may not sound like much but 300Nm from 1200 to 2400rpm made light work of punting along the admittedly unladen body. Designed to work with heavy loads, the front vented disc and rear drum brakes do a decent job of stopping the big white box, with ABS brakes on tap.
The leaf-sprung rigid axle doesn't cope well with odd camber, but where this example comes into its own is when you have a load to carry - that big box out back is rated to heft 1245kg.
We like
The Hiace is so easy to drive. Bluetooth, audio input jack and USB port are nice touches.
