We think the Toyota Proace City is a pretty van, and if you too are won over by its looks it may persuade you to favour it over the Stellantis vans with which it shares a platform, namely the Citroen Berlingo, Peugeot Partner, Vauxhall Combo and Fiat Professional Doblo Cargo.
You may also be won over by Toyota’s ‘Relax’ warranty terms, which can last for up to 10 years/100,000 miles so long as certain stipulated conditions are met.
The van comes with an initial three-year/60,000-mile guarantee. Owners can extend it by an additional one year/10,000 miles free of charge up to 10 years/100,000 miles each time their vehicle has a scheduled service at a Toyota dealership under the Relax warranty scheme until the ceiling is reached. The servicing schedule is 10,000 miles or every year, whichever is reached first.
Toyota updated the Proace City last year. As well as a spruced-up front end, the compact van got the Smart Cargo system, which uses a folding outer passenger seat and a hatch in the bulkhead to extend load length.
The Proace City is available in two lengths with a choice of 102hp and 130hp diesel engines.
Trim options are Active, Icon, and Sport. Standard features of Active include a 10in infotainment touchscreen, digital driver display, automatic emergency braking with forward collision warning, lane keep assist, road sign assist, automatic high beam, driver attention monitoring, an electric parking brake, rear parking sensors, and cargo area plylining (removable on request).
Further features of Icon spec include sat-nav, front fog lights, 16in wheels with full covers, rain-sensing windscreen wipers, power-folding mirrors with piano black casings, one-touch power windows, front parking sensors, and a reversing camera.
Sport spec, tested here in the short-wheelbase (SWB) derivative, adds body-coloured exterior trim and 16in alloy wheels. Our van came with metallic paint as a £417 (ex-VAT) add on.
Performance and drive
Powered by the punchiest version of the four-cylinder 1.5-litre turbodiesel engine with 130hp on tap, the Sport backs up its cosmetic style features with impressive performance. It zips from 0 to 62mph in 8.8 seconds, according to Toyota, and can continue on to a claimed top speed of 114mph. Maximum torque is a strapping 300Nm.
Performance and handling are impressive – the Sport is fun to drive. The six-speed manual gearbox is slick and the steering responsive and true. The little van is manoeuvrable in urban environments, can more than keep pace with motorway traffic and is adept at tackling winding B-roads and country lanes.
While the Sport is fairly well endowed with driver assistance equipment, the fact that the cruise control is not adaptive is disappointing and meant we didn’t bother using it on motorway journeys, where we feel it can occasionally have a detrimental impact on safety by rapidly eating up the space between a slowing vehicle in front if the driver is not fully focused.
Interior and loading
The cabin offers a decent amount of storage, including an overhead shelf, lidded glove box and door bins, and while smartphone integration is simple enough, we found navigation via the Bluetooth route to be a little glitchy and prone to losing connection. The cab occupants are protected by a full-height bulkhead from items coming loose in the load bed, although half a dozen lashing loops are provided to stop this happening.
The SWB Proace City is a decent little load lugger with a nearside sliding door and twin rear doors, which open to 90 degrees and swing through to 180 degrees, giving access to a maximum 3.8m3 load space, thanks to the Smart Cargo system, and a meaty payload of 990kg.
| Model | Toyota Proace City Short Sport |
| Price (ex VAT) | £26,356 |
| Price range (ex VAT) | £23,496 – £27,217 |
| insurance group | 30E |
| Warranty | 3yrs/60,000mls |
| Service intervals | 1yr/10,000mls |
| Load length | 3,090mm |
| Load width (min/max) | 1,229mm/1,527mm |
| Load bay height | 1,200mm |
| Gross payload | 990kg |
| Load volume | 3.8m3 |
| Engine size/power | 1,499cc/130hp |
| Combined fuel economy | 50.4mpg |
| CO2 | 150g/km |
| On sale | March 2024 |
| Key rival | Vauxhall Combo |
| Verdict | The Proace City combines decent performance with practical load-carrying ability. |
| Score | 8/10 |
