All posts by bones

Euro vans in Ireland

I’ve always been a fan of vans.  And what’s not to like, even the little ones have room for lot’s of stuff, and you don’t have to worry about it if it starts raining, like you would with a pickup truck, for instance.

Vans in Ireland come in all sizes, from big to small, but the vast majority are the small ones.  They make handy little worker guy vans and they are everywhere.  One cool little thing you don’t see in the US  is the Citroen Berlingo.

picture of Citroen Berlingo van
Citroen Berlingo

The Berlingo comes in panel vans and a multispace suv type thing, but they are identical except for the extra seats and creature comforts of the suv version.  They have been built since the 90’s, and have tiny little diesel and petrol engines, but lately the engines have grown to 2.0 liters.

picture of Citroen Berlingo
Citroen Berlingo

The newest Berlingo’s have grown slightly larger than this one, but cost considerably more…. I guess that’s progress.

Spotted this VW Caddy van in downtown Dublin…

picture of VW Caddy
VW Caddy

They also have little peanut motors as compared to cars in the states, and are almost all diesels.

This Ford Transit Connect, made in Spain, was spied on the M3 highway.  They are advertised to have advanced diesel engines that can get 70mpg, although I think they meant liters.

picture of Ford Transit Connect
Ford Transit Connect

This last van is a Peugeot Parner, a Peugeot branded Berlingo van.

picture of Peugeot Partner
Peugeot Partner

SsangYong to come to the US?

SsangYong is the 4th largest South Korean automaker and is known around the world for it’s awd SUV’s.  Now owned by India’s Mahindra, they are slated to enter the US market by 2019.

picture of SsangYong dealership
SsangYong dealership in Howth, Ireland

One of SsangYong’s latest offerings is the mini Suv Tivoli, which can be had as awd or ft wheel drive, and a 1.6 liter gas or diesel engine, and a standard shift or Aisin automatic.  From what I’ve seen in Ireland, they are almost all standard shifts, but the US is bound to be automatics mainly.  It would be interesting to see how they do in the US, as their sister corporations Hyundai and Kia are selling like hotcakes.

picture of Tivoli
photo my Wikimedia contributor Minseong Kim