All the extras certainly make this van a tasty contender but on the minus side they bump the price up from £13,065 ex-VAT to £14,780.

The metallic paint sets the Berlingo off a treat – and before any of you scoff at the thought of paying for such luxuries, let me tell you the remarketing experts reckon shiny paint is worth about £500 extra on the sale price of a used van.

So as this option costs £295 to buy, you could actually make a profit on it, provided your drivers don’t add a few scrapes along the side during the van’s fleet life.

Mind you there is plenty of plastic padding on the front, rear and sides (unlike on some other vans in this class), so the Berlingo should stay relatively unscathed.

To my eyes, the extra bit on the back end gives this van a better profile than its smaller brother.

One option we don’t have is the fold-down passenger seat that bumps this van’s load volume up to 4.1 cubic metres.

Instead we’ve got the second passenger seat – this van is the only one in its class offering such an option – and although it looks as though there is precious little legroom for a third person in the front, we’ll be trying it out soon to see how it works.

We’ll also be looking closely at fuel economy to see if the Berlingo can live up to its claimed 48.7 miles per gallon.

As this figure is calibrated on a rolling road with the van empty, we’ll be interested to see how it performs on the open road.