Like a good pair of cargo trousers, cars with sliding doors are the ultimate nod to practicality.
They’re ideal in tight car parks or the school run, where you only have limited space to operate in. Sliding doors are also handy if you’re transporting relatives with limited mobility, allowing easy access to the rear seats.
Here are our 10 favourite cars with sliding doors, which all impress with lots of luggage capacity and invaluable versatility. Find big savings on used people carriers at Motorpoint.
Volkswagen ID. Buzz
Forget supercars with silly doors, the Volkswagen ID.Buzz is a real attention-grabbing car – and achingly cool, too. It's a fully electric reimagining of the classic VW Type 2 bus with more space, much more power, and family-friendly features like electric-sliding doors and up to four Isofix points on LWB versions. The big battery means all versions can go more than 250 miles on a full battery, and can recover an 80% charge in around 30 minutes. You’ll pay for it, though – the ID.Buzz will set you back around £60,000 for a brand-new model.
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Volkswagen Caddy Maxi
Happiness is a diesel box on wheels. It’s the automotive equivalent of living minimalistically. Maybe you find the Buzz a bit too flashy or rather too expensive, in which case embrace the quiet styling and the relaxed nature of the VW Caddy Maxi. There’s little to get your heart racing but plenty to appreciate. Over time it’ll become part of the family and something you can’t bear to part with… probably. Its unstressed diesel and petrol engines are economical, and the diesel engine sits in a surprisingly low insurance group. There are individual rear seats that can be folded or removed to your heart’s content, and four of them have Isofix points in the seven-seat Maxi.
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Citroen Berlingo
The Citroen Berlingo is the ultimate function-over-form vehicle, and is the perfect family vehicle if you have lots of people and things to transport. It’s a savvy choice – one that doesn’t look very cool but gives you lots of satisfaction that almost nothing is too big to go in the boot. Get one in red and adopt a black-and-white cat called Jess, and you’ll be the talk of Greendale. Like the Vauxhall Combo Life and Peugeot Rifter also on this list, the Berlingo has a big cabin, three Isofix points and fantastic access thanks to the sliding doors.
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Vauxhall Combo Life
This is another big family car that benefits from its van-based heritage. The Vauxhall Combo Life is a little more stripped back than its Citroen and Peugeot siblings, but that often means it undercuts them on price. More importantly, the hardware's exactly the same where it counts – most models come with frugal diesel engines and vast amounts of room for passengers and cargo. It's also one of the few cars that has three full Isofix points side-by-side on the rear bench, giving bigger families an affordable alternative to massive MPVs.
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Ford Tourneo Connect
In the Ford van range, the Transit Connect may not be the biggest option but, as a family car, its people-carrying sibling, the Tourneo Connect, is a whopper. It’s about the same size as a Berlingo and, like that car, offers a choice of five or seven seats, and a longer body if you need the maximum amount of space. Whether you pick the VW Caddy-based latest model (pictured) or the previous version, the Tourneo Connect is good value for the space you get.
Volkswagen Multivan
The Volkswagen Multivan is more futuristic than the retro-flavoured ID.Buzz and even more spacious, too. It replaces the Caravelle and is now based on the Golf hatchback, meaning it’s better to drive than before. You now get the option of a plug-in-hybrid engine, as well as sensible diesel and thirsty petrol engines. There’s even a long version with a bigger boot. All are über practical, as you’d expect.
Toyota Proace Verso
Let’s not beat around the bush – this is expressly designed for carrying things. It’s aimed at shuttle bus use primarily, but big families will find its huge interior space useful as well. There are nine seats in the Proace Verso – and the identical Citroen SpaceTourer, Peugeot Traveller and Vauxhall Vivaro Life – with six Isofix points. Thanks to the sliding doors, it’s super easy to install tired toddlers into the rearmost seats.
Peugeot Rifter
The Peugeot Rifter is part of the trio that includes the Citroen Berlingo and Vauxhall Combo Life. It's clearly the favourite child, however, because the Rifter gets slightly posher interior trimmings than the others, along with Peugeot's funky small steering wheel for zippy three-point turns. Elsewhere, the oily bits are the same with most models using frugal diesel engines. There's also the e-Rifter electric van that could save you a bundle on running costs if you can charge at home and do lots of urban driving.
Ford Tourneo Custom
If you’re on your way to having enough kids to start your own football team, you need something with a lot of seats. Like the Toyota and its counterparts above, the Ford Tourneo Custom has up to nine seats and hectares of space if you don’t fill them with bums. And whether it’s mountain bikes or mother-in-laws you’re carrying, the twin sliding side doors will make access easier. The Tourneo Custom can squeeze into most height-restricted car parks, but will probably stick out of a space once you’re in.
Ford Tourneo Courier
Below the Ford Transit Connect, there’s an even smaller Ford van called the Transit Courier. And guess what, there’s a passenger version, too. The Tourneo Courier is essentially the replacement to the B-Max, and is again based on the Fiesta.
Get big savings on your perfect family car
Motorpoint has a vast range of nearly new and used cars available to buy or finance. This includes plenty of spacious people carriers and SUVs. Check out our picks for the best used family cars on sale.
