Large vans aren’t known for their performance. Utility is the name of the game, and that plays hell on aerodynamics. While modern vans are better designed than their predecessors, high speeds are still difficult to achieve. A new video from the TopSpeedGermany YouTube channel displays just how difficult that is, taking a 2012 Fiat Ducato to the German Autobahn in an attempt to reach its top speed.
The Ducato III in the video, a Type 250, features a 2.3-liter engine making 130 horsepower (96 kW) and 236 pound-feet (320 Newton-meters) of torque. That’s not a lot for something as large as a Ducato, and that’s evident as soon as it drives on the Autobahn. It’s agonizingly slow from a dead stop, taking nearly 20 seconds to reach 100 kilometers per hour (62 miles per hour). It’s just as slow as the speed climbs, nearly hitting 170 kph (105 mph). That’s not an impressive speed, but that’s not what the van was designed to do.
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You can see the driver with both hands on the wheel for the majority of the video. Large vehicles are difficult to handle at high speeds. The van’s flat sides make it an easy target for crosswinds, pushing the vehicle around on the highway. That’s one reason speeds on vans and other large vehicles are kept low.
It was surprising to see the Fiat passing cars still. You’d often see such a vehicle parked in the right lane cursing to its destination, not rocketing own the left lane like a Ferrari. The lack of a potent engine makes the audio a bit boring it listen to, though it’s fun to watch the speedometer slowly creep upward on such an odd vehicle. There are plenty of videos of high-powered supercars tackling the Autobahn; however, we can’t think of many high-speed Fiat Ducato videos.