‘IT’S just like driving a big car!’ Those were the exact words of photographer James Scorey as he returned the keys of our long-term Volkswagen Transporter to me after a recent photoshoot.

And he is dead right.

It’s now three months since the van arrived here for a six-month appraisal and for all its size and weight, you feel as though you are behind the wheel of a car – and a pretty powerful one at that.

For those who missed our original test in the last edition, this Transporter may look like an ordinary panel van but under the bonnet lurks a 2.5-litre pumpe duse diesel powerplant that blasts out a whopping 174bhp of power.

The Transporter thinks nothing of 100mph and will apparently hit 120mph on a good day – not, I hasten to add, that we’d recommend that sort of thing.

So far, a variety of testers have borrowed the vehicle and all have marvelled at its power and usefulness.

One used it to take a motorcycle to the local garage, another moved house with it and yours truly went one further the other weekend and used it as a makeshift home at a music festival. Some years ago I owned an old-style Transporter camper van and when I sold it, I wisely kept the awning.

So while others around me crouched in their bivvies cooking up tins of beans on little primus stoves, the memsahib and I reclined in luxury on our sun loungers, sipping sparkling wine from proper glasses while haute cuisine food simmered gently on my family-sized Camping Gaz cooker. The awning didn’t quite fit but with a bit of string attached at either end, no-one would have known the difference.

I peeled the double mattress off my bed at home and with my duck down quilt on top, we wouldn’t have found better quarters at the Hilton.

A major surprise came as I got out the calculator for the van’s first proper fuel economy test.

I don’t exactly hang around (I defy anyone not to use this van’s prodigious power) but was amazed to discover it is returning 33.05 mpg.

I know this figure is a long way from the claimed 44.8mpg but, in my book, a three-tonne gvw vehicle that can top 30mpg with a heavy-right-footed driver is nothing short of a miracle.

Fact file

Price (ex-VAT): £17,957 (as tested £19,272)
Mileage: 3,663
Insurance group: 6
Combined mpg: 44.8
Test mpg: 33.05
Expenditure to date: Nil