He’s a stereotype peculiarly specific to the UK, and yet when you hear him described, no matter where you live, you’ll recognise the work of White Van Man. And you will surely have noticed that there are more of him on our roads now than ever before.
He’s the guy who spends possibly too many hours a day trapped in the interior of a white van, usually delivering things but possibly just carrying the tools of his trade, yet always moving at high speed and with extreme aggression.
White Van Man will cut you off in traffic, attempt to steal your parking space while you’re still in it, drop a parcel off at your front door, knock and then run. He’s also convinced he can hose you off the lights, even if you’re in a Porsche.
His tool of trade is often the Ford Transit - a brand of van so popular and ubiquitous that more than 9 million of them have been sold worldwide - but he seems to believe it is actually a racing car in a cunning disguise.
Top Gear ran various Man With a Van challenges, and even set a lap time around the famous Nurburgring race circuit in a Ford Transit.
The way many of these vans are driven means they are going to need repairs, often, and that spells opportunity in oversized letters for the collision repair market.
Oversized opportunity
That word, ‘oversized’, is the key, however, according to Jason Hornby of Callaghan Collision Centre in Sydney. Just over 12 months ago − so just before the real explosion in having everything home delivered, thanks to Covid 19 - Hornby decided that vans, and being able to repair them, represented a big opportunity for growth. And that meant his business had to grow - physically.
“In our old place, we could do cars, and even SUVs, but we couldn’t do these vans, I didn’t have a big enough booth or enough room to turn big vans around, so we’ve moved and put in an extended booth, with a high roof, so we can do the Volkswagen Transporters and the Transit vans,” he explains.
“It’s a huge growth area, and it’s only going to get bigger - just look at things like Amazon; someone has to deliver all that stuff, and you’ve got Australia Post, and StarTrack, all that.
“And vans are where the growth is, not trucks. My theory is, if you’re a business, why would you want to pay the upfront cost of a truck, and then pay a guy with a truck licence, when you can just get a van and two guys with a normal licence and still be able to move the same amount of stuff?
"That’s why I believe there's just a huge market for vans, and I don’t think it’s something a lot of people in our industry have thought about.
“And you have to ask yourself, if you start getting vans in, are you going to have the room, because these things are up to 2.7m tall, and more than 7m long.”
Hornby also invested in a Spanesi 106 EX realignment system, which is designed to fit a Ford Transit, and an extended aluminium room for his new premises, in Miranda.
While most vans currently on sale - in a market dominated by brands like Mercedes-Benz, Ford, VW, Peugeot and Renault - don’t feature a lot of aluminium construction at present, Hornby believes it’s something that will have to happen.
“It’s starting to come, but it’s just a matter of time so that’s why we’re ready, because they’re going to have to start focusing on power-to-weight ratios, to get their fuel-economy figures down,” he says.
There’s no doubt that giant global car-makers are going to invest more in vans because, even in the midst of one of the biggest economic slumps the world has ever seen, sales for the Ford Transit are actually up this year, according to Ford Australia spokesman Damion Smy.
“In 2020, we’ve seen Transit Custom and Transit sales volume marginally ahead of where it was at the end of August 2019, in what is a very tough, unpredictable climate, and we put that down to the increase in online commerce and specific scenarios that this year has brought,” Smy explained.
“In terms of Australians buying Transit Custom and Transit, we’ve found that features that appeal to larger organisations, such as the standard AEB (Automatic Emergency Braking) on every model across the line-up, and car-like comfort and tech - such as FordPass Connect, Trailer Sway Control and Apple CarPlay/Android Auto - also increase appeal to small business and private buyers, too.”
Ford says that’s been particularly apparent with the Transit Custom DCiV (Double-cab in Van), which it introduced in 2019, offering the flexibility of removable second-row seating as well as a more distinctive exterior, in the case of the Sport model. Yes, a “Sport” Transit van. White Van Man’s dream come true.
“This has made Transit more versatile, with its load-carrying capabilities extended for family duties and other roles, too,” Smy added.
Clearly, there’s far more scope to the van market than just delivery drivers in a mad hurry, as Blake Vincent, Communications Manager for Mercedes-Benz Vans - Australia and New Zealand, is keen to point out.
“We’ve got a very diverse range, from the Sprinter - which is a large, commercial van - to the Vito, which is a mid-sized version, and then you’ve also got private-use vans, like the V-Class, which is a luxury people mover for people with large families,” Vincent explains.
While 60 to 70 per cent of Benz’s van business is fleet sales - and includes entities as large as Australia Post - there are plenty of small-business owners of all shapes and sizes who need vans as well.
“These vans can be heavily customised, so people can adapt the rear cargo area to suit their business operations and you see everything from coffee vans, to food trucks, tradesmen, food-delivery, service vehicles,” Vincent said.
“And in addition to that, on Sprinter we also sell a lot of them to motor-home manufacturers, people like Jayco, that’s a growing business as well.”
While Mercedes-Benz has facelift versions of its Vito and Marco Polo (a luxurious camper van) coming next year, the folks over at Volkswagen – which brought us one of our most beloved designs, the Kombi – are particularly bullish about the future of vans.
“The Volkswagen Caddy - which was purpose-built by VW and launched in 2017 - still occupies the vast majority of the small-van segment, and Transporter is big in mid-sized vans, too, and Crafter is growing,” explains Kurt McGuinness, a VW Australia spokesman.
“We've also launched a specialised body-builder program to offer turn-key van conversions for commercial customers.
“Not to mention the fact that the first two allocations (30 vehicles each wave, at a cost of six figures a pop) of California Beach camper vans sold out online in roughly nine and seven hours respectively.”
That California Beach approach - creating a van that’s basically a mobile holiday home - is another real area of growth that Jason Hornby is keen to tap into.
"A lot of people are using these vans as motor homes, it’s a crazy new world with this stuff, no one’s going to go overseas for a while, so they’re happy to spend $100,000 on something like that, kit it out and then drive around Australia, we’re only going to see more of that,” he says.
More White Van Men, and Women, on the road. You have been warned.
This article first appeared in Paint & Panel July/August edition 2020 and is by Stephen Corby.