Volkswagen Caddy Life review

Don’t expect to jump inside a Caddy and find plush materials and cutting-edge tech. Volkswagen hasn’t exactly been at the Bentley parts bin for this one.

Instead there’s lots of hard-wearing plastics and strong, family-friendly fabric seats – five of them as standard but you can upgrade to seven by ticking an £840 option box or by upgrading to the long-wheelbase Maxi.

The boot is ginormous with a huge tailgate too. In the standard five-seat Caddy Life you get 1,213 litres of space behind the rear seats (compared to 380 litres in the Mk8 Golf). Remove the back bench altogether and you’re left with a 2,556-litre chasm. That’s MPV practicality for you. 

The base-spec Caddy doesn’t get too much kit, with a DAB radio system and a small 6.5-inch touchscreen, but upgrade to Life trim and you’re looking at a proper 8.25-inch infotainment screen with the option of the larger 10.0-inch Discover Media sat nav system from the Golf. There’s also the option of a fully digital 10.25-inch instrument screen. 

What else to mention in here? Well, there’s not quite old Citroen Berlingo levels of storage but it’s certainly not bad. There are plenty of cupholders and cubby-holes (including ones just above your head) plus a neat little drawer underneath each front seat. All trim levels get plenty of airbags too, with a couple for those in the front seat and curtain airbags on all rows.