White Kangoo

This white Kangoo van camper conversion is on eBay at the moment. If you are interested, the link to the auction is here.

I was attracted to this listing because it’s a Kangoo and I wondered if I could get any ideas for mine by looking at this – and the answer is yes.

The first thing that strikes me about this Kangoo is how spacious the back looks when compared with mine. There are two reasons for this. Firstly this van has no back seats (because it knows it’s a van and isn’t confused about whether or not it might be a car, like mine is). Secondly, the bed base is a lot lower and narrower than mine.

From the pictures you can see that the bed is half width when folded. It looks plenty wide enough as a bench seat and there is plenty of room between it and the unit. When unfolded it fills that gap, but the cushions from the bench sit snugly to form a mattress.

The supports for the folding section look like doors on the front of the bed base, but in the view showing the inside of the bed base you can clearly see that there is no access through the front. This is a clever idea because the supports do the job when needed, but look very tidy when not.

The bed base is a storage area, which is a better idea than mine – I have a plastic tote under my bed frame. If I changed my design to a solid box, I could lose the storage box and utilise all of the space in the bed.

I note that the bed is constructed using plastic angle connectors – this means there are no unsightly screw heads on the outside of the bed and no need for battens on the inside – which could look scruffy (definitely would if I built it) and which would inevitably reduce the usable storage space. This angle connector is the same colour as the trims around the doors (and the supports that look like doors) so it all blends in nicely with the wood (or wood-effect MDF) and the grey carpeting on the walls and doors.

The storage nets on the back door and side wall of the van look very useful – I would consider one but I would have to block up a window with ply to have anywhere to fix one.

The table is a common single-leg design and I presume that this is taken to pieces and stored under the bed when necessary. There is even a skylight in the roof, to provide natural light in the absence of windows and ventilation without compromising security.

This van has given me lots to think about.