High Impact

When the wonderfully named Kevin Snuggs wanted a Van to double up as a work promo vehicle and family Camper, only a T5 would do

- Gordie Woollacott

If there is any truth in the disparaging idiom ‘those who can, can, those who can’t, teach’ then Kevin Snuggs definitely can, and he absolutely did – just don’t go expecting him to be rocking up at your local polytechnic any time soon! This neck-breaking T5 is a product entirely cast from his own hands, with help from his cousin, big Daz, along the way.

The path to a T5 for 41-year-old Kev is a familiar one, with a ferry load of Golfs and Caddys in one form or another having passed through his hands first.

Well, familiar that is until we hit a Renault Traffic around 2013. Kev explains (and he’d better!): “At the time, I was doing mobile smart repairs, and also working out of my cousin Daz’s unit doing anything from a half bumper to a full repaint.

“He trained me to paint over 25 years ago, and I used the Traffic for carrying my generator and other kit around to jobs.

No illusion

“When I decided I needed something a bit bigger, the T5 was my first choice.” Working to a tight budget, Kev found the perfect candidate in this base model 2010 SWB T28 Panel Van. But be under no illusion. In 2014 these pictures would have looked a little less dramatic and lot more Reflex Silver.

“With hindsight, I would have gone for a higher spec, older, six-speed and facelifted it, but this was the newest Van I could get for the money at the time.”

In a wonderful moment of automotive schadenfreude, on the way home from putting down the deposit, the previously reliable Traffic threw a tantrum and the gearbox failed.

Just two weeks after that, the new Van was running on 17in banded steels and a set of Jom coilovers.