The first vehicles to wear the easyVan.com livery are 80 long-bodied Mercedes-Benz Vito 109CDIs worth £1.1m, but customers have access to a host of other vehicles across the vast Northgate fleet. They're being offered a choice of five different van sizes for activities such as moving house or simply transporting large heavy objects — a king-size bed, say, or a dining table — from one place to another.

Northgate started providing light commercials for rent via easyCar.com just over a year ago in a pilot project. It says that the number of bookings it received showed that there was a huge opportunity for a dedicated van offering.