Volkswagen Vans up to 3.5 t (Class N1)

The Caddy is the most compact range, with a gross vehicle weight of roughly 2,150 to 2,450 kilograms depending on body style — Caddy, Caddy Kombi or Caddy Maxi. It shares its floor platform with the Golf and is mostly used for smaller deliveries and as a tradesperson's vehicle. The classic Transporter, in its T5, T6 and T6.1 generations, covered the mid-size class for decades and was built in Hanover. Its direct successor, delivered since February 2025, is technically no longer an independent Volkswagen design — it is built on the Ford Transit Custom platform, alongside that model, at the Ford Otosan plant in Turkey, with Volkswagen contributing mainly the interior and body detailing.

The Crafter is the largest range, offered in the Crafter 30 (around 3 tonnes), Crafter 35 (3.5 tonnes) and Crafter 50 (5 tonnes) weight classes. The 5-tonne version therefore exceeds the upper limit of the N1 category and is formally classed as N2. Orders for the second-generation Crafter opened in November 2016, with the first deliveries following in March 2017. Before that, the Crafter differed from the Sprinter externally in little more than the front end, tail lights and engines fitted.

When buying a used Crafter, generation is the decisive difference: vehicles up to model year 2016 are technically equivalent to the second-generation Sprinter, so some spare and wear parts can be swapped between the two brands. The Crafter from 2017 onward has its own design and its own parts structure at Volkswagen, incompatible with the older Sprinter. It is worth checking the exact production date and chassis number before buying, not just the exterior look. A similar point now applies to the newest Transporter: buying one means technically buying a Ford-based vehicle, even though sales, servicing and warranty run through Volkswagen.