The Ford Tourneo Connect is ready to house all your dogs

It appears the people carrier is enjoying a wonderful renaissance. It’s a party Ford’s never truly left, mind, with the Galaxy and S-Max both stalwarts of the genre. And now it has a new offering: the rejigged Tourneo Connect.

It’s a windowed version of one of the wee-er Transit vans, in essence, but it’s a bit more sophisticated than that when you pore over the details. Pore over them too much and you'll realise it's very similar to its Volkswagen Caddy cousin, too...

There are two wheelbase options, both of which cram in seven seats. The rearmost five of those seats – split into rows of three and two – can be folded or removed entirely to fit in bikes, wakeboards or whatever other active gear Ford wants you to use this car for. We want to use it for a ‘how many Goldens can you fit in a fairly small MPV’ record we’re desperate to get off the ground…

The answer is probably ‘many and numerous’, especially given a trio slot nicely into the boot of a BMW 1 Series. There’s over three cubed metres of volume here, as well as a heap of towing ability, with a trailer assist system to lend a hand.

That’s one of 19 active safety systems available on the Connect, while Ford’s more rugged ‘Active’ exterior trim is on offer too. The Tourneo's natively front-driven, with 112bhp 1.5-litre petrol and 100/122bhp 2.0-litre diesel options, the latter getting an optional automatic gearbox and all-wheel-drive transmission. Fuel economy checks in at around 40mpg for the petrol, 50 for the diesel.

The AWD doesn’t impede dog – sorry, luggage – space, and you can option some underbody protection if you plan on yumping your Tourneo across some actual off-road surfaces. So yeah, the people carrier is cool again, though not without a little whiff of the SUV world. But hey, Ford's tie-up with VW on commercial vehicles mean we might also get a camper version, where such rough'n'tumble might be worthwhile...