As has been said, the new MAN is essentially a VW Crafter, VW’s own design and now built in Poland as opposed to the old Crafter which was built by Mercedes in their German factories.
The Citan is a badge engineered Ranault Kangoo, just less spec and more money, but still built by the Frenchies, look hard enough around a Citan and you will find a few Renault badges
semtex65:
The UK van market is sooo limited for choice and this is another perfect example of manufacturers being lazy in design. This TGE is a VW Crafter is a VW Sprinter… A Fiat Ducato is a Peugeot Boxer is a Citroen Relay, A Renault Kangoo is a Merc Citan, A Renault Master is a Vauxhall Movano is a Nissan NV400, and the list goes on. Hardly any of them differ other than the badge on the front. In fact, Ford must be the only manufacturer that makes their own vans?!
Nonsense; I’d suggest that if anything, you’re ridiculously spoilt for choice if you compare the market today to how it used to be twenty or thirty years ago. There are a bewildering variety of capacities, payload, roof height, wheelbase and equipment permutations; most offer a choice of engine output and transmissions. Go back to the 1980’s and you either got a Transit panel van, a Sherpa or a Merc 307, that was just about it. Renault only introduced the Trafic and Master in 1981, and the early ones weren’t up to much, Peugeot and Citroen only made cars then, and Nissan only made those bloody awful little things with a column change that were undriveable if you were over five feet tall. There were a few others like Bedford CF’s, but nothing like the choice of today.
MAN dont its just another piece of Volkswagen crap.
Mind you if MAN did make a van what a real piece of garbage that would be!
Something like their trucks.
citycat:
Is there a Volvo or Scania van in the pipeline?
MAN are targeting truck operators who also run vans. Thats how they differ from the Volkswagen Crafter which is the same van in all but badging and spec. Their USP is going to be a truck based approach to sales and service rather than a car dealer based one.
Scania won’t do a van, they cant even be arsed to do something smaller than 18 tonnes despite the fact that Scanny operators would go nuts for it. If they entered the van market now they would just be taking share from VW.
Volvo do sell vans. The Renault Traffic and Renault Master are both sold through Renault Trucks dealers and that’s owned by Volvo Trucks. I’m hoping the Alaskan will be coming out through truck dealers too because I’d much rather deal with Thompsons than Evans Halshaw.
grumpyken52:
Aren’t MAN owned by VW Group ?
Larger VW vans are the same shells as Mercs with different front panels .Sent from my SM-G903F using Tapatalk
Yes, VW own MAN and Scania. FCA or Fiat Chrisler Automotive own Iveco, Volvo Trucks own Renault Trucks as said above and Daimler own Merc and Fuso. Izuzu have some sort of platform sharing deal with the Renault Nissan Alliance for the Cabstar E 3.5t cabover thing that scaffolders love. I think DAF is the only independent truck maker out there.
The platform sharing deal between VW and Merc for the Crafter/Sprinter ended at the model change. Both are going their own separate ways now which is why you can now get a Front Wheel Drive crafter.
Other platform shares I can think off of the top of my head.
Renault, Nissan, Vauxhall/Opel and Fiat all do the Vivaro/Traffic built at IBC in Luton.
Renault, Nissan, Vauxhall/Opel do the Master/Movano.
Renault, Nissan and Mercedes share the Kangoo/Citan and the Navarra, Alaskan, X-Class.
Vauxhall/Opel and Fiat share the Combo/Doblo
PSA Peugeot Citroen and Fiat share the Ducato/Boxer/Jumper and the Qubo/Bipper/Nemo/Whatever Fiat call the van version.
PSA and Toyota share the HiAce/Dispatch
Fiat and Mitsubishi share the L200/Fullback.
Ford don’t have platform shares in Europe but don’t forget that off all the brands I’ve discussed, Ford is the only Global brand. Renault are very sparse in the Americas. Nissan don’t ship their commercial products world wide, just thier cars. Fiat is very rare in the US, Vauxhall/Opel cars are sold under other brands world wide but particularly in the states, GMC are the big commercial brand and they’ve been churning out repeat panel van designs for years. Mercedes sell the sprinter internationally but they sell them as Dodges in the USA, despite Dodge now being part of FCA. Neither Scania nor MAN have presence in the States. Volvo Trucks do have a presence in North America but their biggest brand over there is MACK. Ford is the only company which sell into most segments in most countries so while they don’t share costs in Europe with another manufacturer they can spread them across several markets.
A few years ago I went on a Mercedes Benz ‘introduction to commercial vehicles course’ which was aimed at employees new to the product, not the industry. It was predominately van based rather than trucks which I was involved with at the time, and included off road driving in a 4wd Sprinter and a loop of the alpine route at Millbrook Proving facility in a Mercedes Citan (Renault Kangoo). Whilst waiting to be given the Citan demo we were told by the instructors why Mercedes were using the Renault. Mercedes initially asked VW to share the Caddy because it was already a best seller but, VW refused. They realised that they needed a product quickly in that market and Mercedes engineers said it would take 7 years to produce their own. Mercedes USP is their commercial dealer network are open 24 hours, as in MAN’s, so to sell VW products through their 24 hour network makes real sense I would think, bringing the challenge to Mercedes. Having worked on Mercedes products exclusively I don’t consider them to be as good as people perceive them to be. 
nsmith1180:
. I think DAF is the only independent truck maker out there.
No independent truck manufacturers these days. They are owned by Paccar. DAF of course no longer make vans anyhow after their brief stint building Sherpas!