There used to be plenty of options if you wanted a really small city-sized van. Today though, if that's what you need, a Ford is almost certainly what you want. Maybe this one, the Fiesta Van, here offered in its latest improved form. The Blue Oval brand still thinks there's a customer need for tiny LCVs like this. Are they right?
Perhaps. Size, after all, isn't everything when it comes to vans. In fact, for a certain kind of customer, small is beautiful - as will be the case when it comes to an LCV if, for instance, your business only delivers very small items in congested urban areas. Ford has been producing its Fiesta Van to cater for this need ever since 1976 and in 2014, widened its offering in the city van sector to also include the Fiesta-based Transit Courier van, for those wanting the same small roadway footprint but a slightly larger 'hi-cube'-style load capacity.
But small business like florists and couriers often don't need much space in the back and for them, the older approach to small van design - that of simply taking a supermini and doing little more than removing the rear seats and blanking out the rear windows - works just fine. All the main LCV brands used to populate this part of the van market, either with supermini-derived vans or hi-cube-style ones. Now though, things are very different. In fact, these days the only brand still competing with Ford in the cityvan segment is Fiat - and their Fiorino hi-cube van is in its last run-out phase. Every other LCV manufacturer will try and sell you an entry-level version of a family hatch-based model from the next class up - something like Ford's own Transit Connect model. And that might not really be what you actually need.