Following the jolly time I had on Friday night, see here - the breakdown guy turned up a in 56-plate M-B Vito. Nice enough I thought.

By the time he'd finished I'd found out it had a 3-litre derv unit under the bonnet, had been remapped, and was running circa 270bhp :eek: - good for 150 apparently

Spec here - so if you see one of these out and about, or trying to get past, perhaps it's best to move out of the way

He was saying he ordered 8, unseen, after M-B announced them. Word was they weren't happy with VW beating them with the 168bhp Transporter Sportline - crazy Germans! Not bad looking I thought, following on from the Van ugly tree thread here a few weeks ago:

Just thought I'd share....

Steve

:eek: Why do you need a van that quick?

Sorry, stupid question.

You don't but that's no reason not to get one!

270 bhp:eek:

That's pretty awesome for a van.

I'd want it to handle as well though, otherwise it would be very very scary.

That's what I thought, but I thought it best not to ask!

I mean, even the 'standard' one gives you 204bhp, 120mph and 60 in 8sec. Some people are never satisifed

Steve

He said it felt very stable at 'some' mph

I did note it had full ESP when I had a gander. Vans have obviously come a long way since the last time I rented a Transit! AC, electric windows, CD etc etc, oh yeah, and quite a lot of oommpph :eek:

Steve

The last generation RWD transits were tidy handlers... the cdi sprinters less-so because of their flimsy chassis/body that had a habit of flexing too much and cracking the windscreens.. the sprinters were faster at the time tho, but because of the body flex desparately needed a LSD

No idea what the current-gen fwd wagons are like - has been a good few years since i drove a van in anger

0-60 in 8 seconds is quicker than my car! :eek:

rapid response:D

The last generation RWD transits were tidy handlers... the cdi sprinters less-so because of their flimsy chassis/body that had a habit of flexing too much and cracking the windscreens.. the sprinters were faster at the time tho, but because of the body flex desparately needed a LSD

No idea what the current-gen fwd wagons are like - has been a good few years since i drove a van in anger

i have a 145bhp petrol RWD transit as a works van, its an 04 plate and does handle alright for a van

absolutely shockingly dangerous ABS though!! if your turning quite tightly and braking the aBS cuts andyou can't brake again still your straight, bloody van.

doesn't sound like an issue but if your nipping out of a side road into stop start traffic and need to quickly swing round and stop you can't as the brakes don't work!!

:eek: Why do you need a van that quick?

Sorry, stupid question.

You don't but that's no reason not to get one!

270bhp is quite a lot for a van...but then again the Merc is quite heavy too...the Toyota Hiace though...it's only 130bhp, but it's also pretty light and it's pretty quick...certainly taken on your Urbans and stock Transporters, I've seen a couple of them race here

I was chasing a Sprinter with fridge unit up the M11 at 120+ last Tuesday. Very impressed.

What about the 170-odd bhp 2.5TDi VW Caravelle 4Motion (the Transporter only gets (got?) 130bhp)

very quick vans we have a couple at work think they are the 115s but the shift when they are empty got a great 6 speed box on as well

Was going to say these things are designed to pull 3.5tonne at a decent speed, so when empty they fly

i dont think the vitos can take that kind of weight its the sprinters you are thinking off

I was on the M6 today, and was overtaken by a merc van..... he was (in my estimation) doing about 115 mph.......