Renault Kangoo Van
I first saw this van when it was about 4 months old and it had had a knock on the front off-side and was written off by the insurance company. It was in the yard of Willingham Car Spares and David, the Proprietor showed me around it and said that it would be a great little van for his business - collecting and delivering stuff. I was really impressed with the practicality of the whole thing - one large and one small rear door, a passenger seat which folded down to increase the floor length right up to the dashboard. It also had a kind of folding bulkhead behind the front seats, which could be hinged alongside the driver to make use of the extra room on the passenger side.
I often asked David to put me down to buy it when it came up for changing. This finally happened in early October of 2004 and I went over to collect it and although I have done only a couple of hundred miles in it so far, I am really pleased with it. It is a 1.9 diesel and has remote central locking and power steering. The radio cassette is still in and can be controlled via the now typical steering column switches, just like Clios and Meganes.
It was ply lined which I have removed as it was rather tatty and soaked in the very best EP80 gear oil - so I needed to get rid of the smell! The floor underneath is near perfect, so I will use the original pieces as templates and replace them with new.
I intend to leave it lettered for a while to give David a bit of free advertising, as a bit of a thank you for all his help over the years I have known him. There are a few small battle scars to attend to, but nothing major.
Christine and I have a vague plan to use it to take our bicycles over to the Continent next year for a bit of touring and perhaps to relieve the Germans of a bottle or two of their wine. It will certainly get used for carting my motorcycle bits about, and even parting with some of the junk we have collected.
Update 1st Jan 2005
So the lettering has now gone and we have done a couple of thousand miles so far and it performs very well. I used the old boarding ply as templates, so the rear space is now all fresh and clean again. I delivered one of my old 400/4's recently to John Kenworthy of Sunrise Graphics and it fitted in very well. I also tried the GB500TT for size (NO! it's not for sale) and easily managed it complete with mirrors. I reckon that is about the limit really, and would have to resort to the trailer for anything much bigger.
I treat it to a new set of glow plugs, which have put the starting back to normal, and also bought the genuine Renault storage shelf which fits above the drivers head. This is a great piece of kit, as it allows you plenty of room for extra storage out of harms way and also away from prying eyes.