white van man

205 hp is only interesting if your a girl.

not when its standard in a van and comes with 125k mile warranty :)

125k mile warranty???? That's shit. I though virtually all standard Merc van warranties were unlimited mileage.

I have a VW Caravelle version (same kind of thing) with a VR6 motor. Its got traction control, passive rear wheel steering, 8 seats!, climate control, leccy windows, electric seats and mirrors, 4 speed fuzzy logic autobox with lockup, power steering, 17 x 9.5 wide alloys with Avon 235 tyres, cruise control, central locking, fuel computer, etc etc and its slow. I drove the equivelent merc and it was slower still.

Does about 120 flat out and about a week to get there. Nice limo though if you are going anywhere any distance! Other than it does bugger all to the gallon and costs 125 to fill up...

Picture here

Of course my own 300bhp+ turbo nitrous suzuki drag/road bikes, years at bruntingthorpe working for bike mags and papers testing the fastest production and modded stuff in existence and my own V8 nitrous injected sierras (tow cars?) and other fast toys spoiled me a bit. Compared to them everythings slow! Really slow. Ever done 200 mph on 2 wheels? I did 170 through the timing beams without a crash helmet! Thats really fast! Its MUCH "faster" than you can imagine! Couldnt see f*ck all and had trouble keeping my tounge in my mouth! Did wheelies for a mile at a time in every gear but top with no cops to worry about. Could practice rolling burnouts on other peoples (importers) bikes! And get paid! And Im deaf from all the endless reving of drag bike motors on nitrous and open mega exhausts bouncing off the limiter both at the stroip and in the confines of my workshop and on the dyno. It recalibrates your idea of fast very slightly!

To me all production cars shopping trolly or "sporty" are dog slow. The "fast" ones are almost the same as the cooking models with a few more cc and a few stripes and different wheels... Its mostly marketing bullshit. Of course the are real fast cars but they are usually extremely expensive (like ferarri etc) or badly made small production run cars like kit cars.

In truth all that power can never be user freindly for the masses so they dont get built by mainstream manufacturers.

Mate of mine just got a 115, he's annoyed he didn't wait for the V6.

I was going to say that, considering you're used to Nitrous bikes and all that, it would feel slow.

But it appears you later went and said it all by yourself.

Don't know how much power your VR6 van's got, but the latest Sprinter range (obvously a tad bigger than what you've got) features the 3.5V6 petrol with

258bhp, which is certainly reasonable, and with an LPG conversion should compare quite nicely in the running costs stakes to the diesels. Obviously the main worry is that with oil price fluctuations, and just inflation in general, in percentage terms it could affect LPG running costs more than diesel if it's a case of a few pence per litre rise in cost. i.e. 5p/litre on 40p/litre for LPG makes a bigger wallet dent than a 5p/litre increase on 90p/litre diesel.

Do they do the 258bhp 3.5V6 petrol in the Vito?

That'd be a bit good.

No, but you can fit most merc car engines under the bonnet, and, of course, Brabus do.

6.1 litre viano / vito V8 auto anyone?

426 hp, 621Nm.

But you can't do your deliveries on a drag bike...

No it would be better, thirstier and it still weighs 2 tons! I used to have

2 wheelers with more that weighed 500 lbs... Its not practical for fuel, and still slow...

Better but still slowish. Its got the same power to weight as a cosworth sierra. (approx) Which was slower than my old cheap V8 Sierra towcar. Which had about 350 rear wheel measured hp on gas. Which is about 350 bh per ton. Which is nothing like the 300bhp (plus nitrous) blke at 500 lb which is way way better than 1400bhp per tone not even including the two stages of nitrous!

To be properly "fast" like a proper bike or a seriously tuned modded car at two tons it would need rear drive and 1700bhp+... Using very rounded calculations!

Fast is relative.

But If they were "production" as a wheelchair user I would buy one! Whats the cost?

Mmm Well it depends what you are delivering! Pizza delivery guys would love it!

Well, the quoted on a Viano is "from" ?114000, which I think isn't that bad all things considered, especially as the engine is a bit special and everything else is uprated properly to match. I reckon they'd get the new AMG 6.3 V8 in there which is high revving and >500 bhp.

Engine compartment is small, which I reckon is precluding the supercharged V8.

I bet it's faster with a bike in the back than your tow car with a bike in it's trailer...

Well my bike trailer was a big box van with a dynamometer generator, cooling system, a drum weighing around a ton, tools, beer, fridge, and several bikes! So I doubt there would be any difference!

Jeez, I'd hate to see the cymbals ;)

ba-dum-tish

Or surely just tish.