Does your washing machine come with a raised ride height? Would you pay extra for a storage unit with a rakish roofline? Do your Amazon parcels arrive sporting flared wheel arches and a “sport” trim badge? Of course not. When it comes to moving people and stuff, the truth is stubbornly simple: boxy works. Always has.
And yet, family-car buyers in the UK—and pretty much everywhere else—have collectively decided that what they really need is an SUV. A tall one. A chunky one. Preferably with fake skid plates and wheels that look like they were borrowed from a Tonka truck. In making that choice, they’ve traded space efficiency and real-world practicality for something they believe looks fashionable. Whether SUVs are still “cool” when literally everyone, including your grandmother and her bridge club, drives one is very much up for debate.
What’s beyond debate is what we lost along the way.
The Multi-Purpose Vehicle—long the unsung hero of family transport—has been pushed to the margins. Once-familiar names like Zafira, Galaxy, Picasso, and Voyager have quietly slipped into history. Even the Renault Scenic, for years the poster child of sensible European family motoring, has shape-shifted into an SUV. If you want a new MPV today, your options are mostly limited to vans with windows and seats bolted in.
To be fair, modern van-based people movers are far better than their ancestors. They’re refined, surprisingly decent to drive, and massively practical. But no matter how plush the seats or how clever the infotainment, there’s still a lingering school-minibus vibe you can’t quite shake.
Which is why a recent six-month stint with Volkswagen’s ID. Buzz felt like a reminder from the past—and maybe a postcard from the future. Yes, there’s a Cargo version, but crucially the Buzz is based on a passenger-car EV platform, not a commercial vehicle shell. And it proves something MPV fans have known all along: if your goal is to fit people and their belongings inside a vehicle, nothing beats a purpose-built box on wheels.
The Buzz isn’t perfect, and it isn’t cheap, but its basic philosophy is spot-on. Upright sides. A tall roof that’s actually usable. Seating that works with the laws of physics instead of against them. You don’t climb up into it or fall down out of it—you just get in. What a concept.
Encouragingly, there are signs that manufacturers might be rediscovering this forgotten logic. Kia has rolled out the PV5. Lexus sells the ultra-luxurious LM. Volvo has the EM90. In China, premium MPVs like the Zeekr Mix and Denza D9 are thriving, quietly proving there’s real demand for vehicles that prioritize space, comfort, and flexibility over aggressive styling cues. Mercedes is also lining up the VLE, another signal that the segment isn’t as dead as it once appeared.
The catch? Most of these are large, expensive, or aimed at markets outside the UK. But shrink those ideas down. Make them affordable. Pitch them as mid-size family cars rather than luxury lounges. Do that, and it’s not hard to imagine serious sales volume.
Which brings us to a modest proposal: 2026 should be the year of the MPV revival.
Not the dowdy, beige boxes of old, but modern, intelligently designed people movers that lean into what they do best. Cars with genuinely flexible seating systems, sliding doors that make school runs painless, clever storage solutions, and interiors that can morph from family shuttle to DIY hauler in minutes. Wrap it all in clean, understated styling, and suddenly “practical” doesn’t have to mean “boring.”
SUVs, after all, have become the cane toads of the automotive ecosystem. They evolved an early advantage—buyers liked the look, manufacturers liked the margins—and promptly multiplied until they crowded out nearly everything else. Now the market is awash with big faces, bluff noses, and vehicles that promise adventure but rarely venture beyond a speed bump.
The MPV can be the antidote. It’s more useful than an SUV unless you genuinely go off-road. It’s more honest about its mission. And unlike SUVs, it isn’t burdened with awkward questions about efficiency penalties, unnecessary weight, or why you need all-wheel drive to do the weekly shop.
Most of all, more MPVs would bring something the family-car market sorely lacks: choice. Real choice. Not just the same tall hatchback in slightly different outfits.
While we’re at it, let’s also bring back a few estates. But that’s a crusade for another day.
For now, the message is simple. The box was never the problem. We just forgot how good it was.
Source: Auto Express
