On The Road
Ahhhh, forward control. Legs dangling out in front, engine under the passenger’s seat – you can’t beat it. But then again, neither can the DOT tests all vans have to go through, so at least it meets frontal impact standards.
Handling unladen at motorway speeds is a little squirmy, particularly with any sort of side wind, but things are much, much better with a load when the Cabstar corners nicely and predictably. It can still be a little light at high speed on the motorway, however.
Putting a 1,300kg test load in the back also helped to take the edge off the brakes, which are razor sharp and only need the weight of a falling autumn leaf to throw passengers forward. Unfortunately, we couldn’t perform our usual brake tests because of problems with our equipment.
As we have already mentioned, the gearing feels very short. Our tester kept reaching out for the gear lever assuming there was another ratio or two left in the box, but no, five’s your lot.
The van feels uncomfortable cruising at 70mph; maintaining headway along the motorway is expensive and noisy, and we noticed a lack of power on the hills of our test route. Speeds dropped a fair bit on the M20 climb and, although its short gearing gave the Cabstar an initially good account on the sprint up the second incline, it was ultimately left wanting.
While on the subject of hills, the handbrake on the Cabstar failed to hold on even the easiest of hills, so we couldn’t test its hill-starting ability. Three out of CM’s four roadtesters loath umbrella handbrakes like the Cabstar’s, but this one doesn’t mind them at all; at the end of the day it’s all down to the driver.
Sitting on the test hill on the foot brake revealed that this example tended to drop its revs when on a slope; an interesting side-effect on being at an angle. It probably doesn’t help the Cabstar’s hill climbing ability either.
Acceleration is good to start with but soon trails off; fortunately the gearchange isn’t too bad with a short throw and only occasional reluctance to find the desired ratio. Although the Cabstar is well suited to urban deliveries, long motorway journeys soon become a bit of a chore.
Cab Comfort
Cab comfort isn’t bad unless you’re talking about the middle seat. Your passenger would need to be Kate Moss to fit in there, and even then you wouldn’t find much opportunity to relax, not least because she’d be complaining about getting the only lap belt.
Sadly, the best option seems to be to leave the supermodel behind and fold the centre seat into its work-table mode for documents and for a couple of cup holders. Folding it flat also opens up another slim area for storage which is otherwise in short supply in this cab.
One strange feature of this generally well designed cab is a pen holder which only seems to be capable of accommodating the kind of twig-thin pencils used by ladies of a certain age to note down their bridge scores.
The other passenger gets a three-point belt, as does the driver; who can also have fun with the adjustable steering wheel. The driver’s seat does not, unfortunately, have much room for adjustment given the size of the cab but it kept this six-foot tester comfortable enough.
The view from the cab is pretty good despite a low windscreen line and A-pillars a hair-s breadth away from the driver’s head, while the majority of controls are sensibly laid out. The radio could be less fiddly, however.
With the engine mounted under the seat, the Cabstar has a little of the flavour of al fresco motoring about it. Cab noise is fairly high thanks to this arrangement, as is the build-up in transmission and wind noise with speed (despite the claimed improved aerodynamics). Noise topped 80dB(A) at 70mph on the test track and that isn’t great.
