Volkswagen ID.Buzz - long-term review

Month two and I’ve been busy using the Buzz for a variety of purposes it probably wasn’t designed for. But that’s the thing about it: you have a luxurious EV, you have a van, you have a room on wheels with sliding doors on both sides - the possibilities are endless.

First a run to the tip, seats down, with the damp remnants of a pond ripped from our garden – the most disgusting cargo imaginable. I had to leave the windows open overnight to avoid permanently odorising the interior, but a quick hoover and it was back to its sparkly best. Side note - I’m not a fan of the light-coloured seats, any dirt is horribly obvious and as I’ve just established, I have no intention of wrapping the Buzz in cotton wool.

Onwards to Bicester Motion and the Sunday Scramble – a cracking event that just got a little bit cracking-er with the addition of a Top Gear stand for the foreseeable future. Of course it was the spicier stuff – McMurtry Spierling, Aston Martin Valhalla, BMW M5 Touring and MG Cyberster – that we put front and centre for the crowds to coo over, but there in the background, propping up the operation, was the Buzz – hastily converted into a merch stand/mag distribution centre. Is there anything this car can’t do?

Yes, actually, it can’t sit three across the front, which is what we needed for a Top Gear Taxi film with Ewan McGregor and Charley Boorman. But the Buzz cargo (only available in short wheelbase form) can, so we borrowed one. It felt lighter, faster, darker and way more basic than our seven-seater, but it got Ewan and Charley enthused and there was space for a motorbike in the back, which is a niche set of requirements admittedly, but proves the Buzz range has an unfathomably broad repertoire.

Speaking of which, after just two months we’re waving goodbye to this ‘Style’ seven-seater in white and blue and swapping it for a long-wheelbase GTX model. More power, four-wheel drive, less range… could this be a rare case of the more powerful model being the better EV? More on that soon.