What Van? Britain's biggest and best van buyers' guide

Iveco has a huge amount of pedigree in the famous Dakar Rally with its trucks, but perhaps it's missing a trick with its full-blooded off-roading van, the Iveco Daily 4x4.

It stands mightily high off the ground giving it an impressive fording depth of up to 650mm, and its permanent four-wheel-drive means it can get pretty much anywhere.

Available as a chassis cab, crew van or panel van, it can be had at either 3.5, 5.5 or 7.0-tonnes. Testing it as a panel van leads us to conclude it may be one of the most accomplished off-roaders ever of its kind. Off-road vans of this size aren’t all that common, and aren’t the sort of thing your local dealer will have lying around on the forecourt, but there’s an option box for everything these days and that is definitely true of the Iveco Daily 4x4 which comes as either an All-Road model or as an Off-Road version.

All-Road versions get twin-rear wheels for added on-road comfort from the larger footprint on the road, while the Off-Road vans are single-rear wheel with beefy suspension on both to cope with payloads of up to 2,639kg for the 5.5-tonne Off-Road and 2,767kg for the All-Road chassis cab model. The higher GVW 7.0-tonne chassis can move 4,132kg for the Off-Road version and 4,267kg for the All-Road. As a chassis cab with a flat bed, that’s more than enough to load some small plant equipment and take it deep into the forest, or even a muddy construction site, which is where these Daily 4x4s will shine. 

Steep inclines are a breeze and it even effortlessly controls its decent, as a van there’s load volume for up to 18.0m³ with 9.0m³, 11.0m³, 12.0m³, 13.4m³ and 16.0m³ depending on which of the three wheelbase lengths and three heights you choose. 

Whichever version you choose, they’ll be equally as capable off the asphalt thanks to three locking differentials in the centre, front and rear which can be activated in that specific order to give you a seriously unflappable off-roader. 

An impressive party piece that goes hand-in-hand with that 650mm wading depth is the trick switch that disables the engine cooling fan to stop water getting drawn in. 

Another stand-out feature is the Hi-Matic gearbox which is mated to a 3.0-litre 180hp Euro-6e engine with 430Nm of torque. The vast majority of pick-up trucks these days are equipped with automatic transmissions and with good reason as when it comes to off-roading they are effortless in their abilities. The Hi-Matic, although not specifically designed for such a task as it is a spin-off of the gearbox used in fast Maseratis, copes equally well at selecting the right gear while off-road. Driving the Daily over some pretty challenging terrain on muddy ground it was only when the surface was really loose that we had to use the differentials. The gearbox was unflappable getting the power down quickly enough to stop you getting bogged down and the huge wheel articulation from the suspension was enough to suggest the Daily could comfortably outperform any pick-up truck. In addition, its short front overhang makes it even more versatile – providing the rear doesn’t ground out. 

The suspension is comfortable on any surface and an air-sprung driver’s seat finesses the ride further still. It would be ideal for quarries, great for builders and perfect for groundwork where there’s a need to venture far off-road with a lot of equipment.

While the mechanical abilities are its true selling point, it’s also good to know that this isn’t in any way a compromise from a standard Daily van. It’s still got the fancy memory foam seats and Iveco Driver Pal (or an Amazon Alexa, if you’re being entirely accurate).

Iveco Daily 4x4 7.0-tonnes