Test drive by Renault Kangoo 1997 - 2003 Minivan
Similar to a kangaroo
Kanga, similar to a kangaroo It is tempting me to call this car a kangaroo. In the name of Kanga, you see, there is something elusive from the Australian marsupial mammal, in addition, the car itself is not capable of size and is ready to hide in its bag both people and domestic animals, and a lot of luggage.
In search of an unknown continent
For the first time, my meeting with him took place in September at a car dealership in Frankfurt. In August, Renault Kanga did not get to Moscow - not many foreign firms decide on world premieres in the Russian car dealership on the eve of Frankfurt - not the same scale.
I immediately liked the car itself. In some ways, it was very reminiscent of the Rename Pangea shown in the spring in Geneva-a prototype of a research car, named after a supercontinent, uniting, by guesses, all modern continents in Paleozoic. The body forms, the design of the front, the hood line, however, had three passenger doors, one driver and two passenger from the opposite side (including the rear seat passengers), and four have four.
To turn the mysterious Pangea into a real canga, the designers, in my opinion, did not need so much: change the wheels, remove the space glass cap on the roof, a winch from the front bumper, fill the slots in the front wings, the passenger door on the left and insert the rear side glasses instead cells for instrumental and laboratory boxes. Well, for movement, of course, replace the electric motors with an ordinary internal combustion engine. It turned out a very pretty, original passenger car, attracting a lot of attention and legible Germans to Frankfurt-on-Maine. But that the exhibition, albeit as large -scale as Frankfurt. To get acquainted with the car, you need not just to inspect it, sit in the cockpit, but twist your pens, add buttons, ride, give it gas, feel how she holds on the road. Renault proposed to conduct an introductory test Kanga in the west of France, in Brittany. The areas, as it is represented by French textbooks of geography, beautiful and very crossed, but, alas, unfamiliar to me.
Terra incognita and auto -vehicle incognita I admit, while the SAAB-340 Two-Motor screw aircraft for more than an hour buzzed with motors from Paris to Van, the main city of the Morbian department, I was worried as before the first date. However, so it really was. New Earth, a new unknown car, created on the basis of a mysterious, unknown Pangea.
Among the many puzzles there was another - what model Kanga will be presented for an introductory test? I really did not want it to be a bristle van, about the beginning of the release of which was reported to Renault issued on the eve of the Bulletins. In the cargo version, albeit very necessary, very convenient and useful, the originality of design ideas is inevitably lost. And, as it may seem, Kanga turns into a simple, distorted donkey, of which there are plenty of the world in all countries of the world. Almost every automaker produces them, and the Russian version also received a humiliating, but a well -aimed nickname - heel.
My fears, fortunately, were not justified. Immediately behind the small house of the airport, on which, as it seemed, it landed for the whole day of our plane, the brand new canga stood in two rows. Yellow machines were equipped with diesel engines, blue - gasoline engines. Due to the innate Russian distrust of diesel engines, due to the noise and stench emanating from domestic engines, the first thing I wanted to try out a gasoline option so as not to spoil the impression.
Believe the saw! If one of the journalist colleagues says that before you drive a new car, he looked for a long time and admired the car, then he will clearly deceive. There was simply no time for this according to the program. Immediately behind the wheel - and on the road on schedule and without delay. Therefore, acquaintance begins from the inside.
In the luggage compartment - only a trunk in Kanga cannot be called - not just a lot of places, but a lot. Like in an aviation container. There are at least six pieces of road suitcases, like mine, with unnecessary rear seats. As it turned out later at a press conference, Kanga generally has the largest trunk among all Renault cars. The volume under the rear shelf is 600 liters, and with folded rear seats and the cleaned shelf generally giant - 2600 liters. Useful boot loading is 750 kg. My suitcase, which I was generally proud of, turned, in comparison with such volumes, into a school pencil case. And, probably, it would be better to just put it in the back seat, also wide and comfortable.
Hands on the steering wheel. I drive the seat. Two adjustments - both stepped: back and forth and tilt of the back. Initially, it seemed that choosing a convenient position is not easy, then I realized that it was not necessary to demand the impossible. After the first kilometers, I got used to it. But the main impression is a sense of space. In Kanga, you do not feel like a clamped metal stamping of the body. You are spacious. Above the head of good centimeters thirty. Apparently, because of this sensation of space, I caught myself thinking that it would be difficult to settle on the narrow rural paths of Brittany. And, of course, it turned out to be wrong. After all, the width of the car is ordinary: 1663 mm. In the driver's place, everything is done in smart. The location of the levers and levers, their purpose does not cause any doubts, and therefore there is no need to look at the pictograms depicted on them. The control of the radio has a conclusion to the steering wheel, to the right of the airbag. So all the attention of the road, and they are really narrow here. In addition, a cyclist goes towards. He waves a flag, inviting to stop. Road police? No, a simple guy, but why a flag in his hand? Just in case, I stop. And I do the right thing. After a minute, a whole herd of cows is shown due to the turn.
While animals, well -groomed and important, pass along the road, I look around the salon once again. Three are free
they will be placed in the back seat, and for everyone the seat belts are provided. The rear passenger on the left housed a spacious plastic pocket in the side of the body walls. Several bottles of water will enter there and there will still be a place for food. There are cup holders in the sidewalls of the doors of the driver and the right passenger. And what's that? Above the windshield in its entire length of the regiment, and quite solid, with reliable selection. A book and a road atlas, a cigarette block, and even a light jacket will find a place on it. The machine is really well adapted for long travel. Yes, and the road clearance (in a loaded state of 15 cm) is clearly designed not only for the city trips of Kangurenka. Then, in the parking lot, the representative of Renault Mr. Jean-Jacques Delyavier showed another interesting detail. In cars with two bags of the luggage compartment in the back of the roof there is a folding hatch for long -sized cargo. Windsurfer and much more will easily accommodate in it. The French called this folding hatch that a giraffe called that Russian can be translated as a giraffe head. The Pangea concept car at about this place had a glass dome with a video camera for a circular review.
But the last cow lazily moved away from Kanga, and the car ran back along the winding paths
Brittani. To the honor of the French, the passing part, although narrow, but even and well -groomed. However, caution will never hurt: there are sites with traces of fresh autumn dirt on the asphalt, left by the wheel tractor or the same cows. Frequent shurry of the road allows you to make sure that in corners a kangaroo is holding confidently. The power steering of the steering mechanism helps exactly as required to make driving tireless and at the same time not to break away from the real sensations of the machine, as is the case in American cars. The engine with a volume of 1.4 liters seemed very burdensome. He clearly allowed me a lot: sometimes to drag in the fourth gear at a speed of 40 km/h, quite confidently accelerate on the fifth from 70 km/h to maximum passport 155. True, in the latter I managed to make sure only on the auto -highway leading to the Nantes. The sloppiness of the traction is simple: the engine from Renault Megan is installed by the car, who, as he already wrote at the wheel, cope with his duties and on the mini-wen Senik.
During movement at increased speed, impulses of the side wind were clearly felt. This is no wonder. At the height of Kanga, a ninety meter could be expected the worst. But, apparently, they especially cared about stability, still designing Pangea to be able to resist the unknown winds of the future.
The whole day driving Kangu went unnoticed. As if there were no two hundred kilometers wound around Brittany. Probably, this is the best praise by the designers who managed to create a new type of car, unlike others.
Van-Parizh-Moscow
Renault Kangoo
Renault-Kanka
TECHNICAL SPECIFICATIONS
General data: number of places - 5; Equipped mass - 1085 kg; full weight - 1835 kg; maximum speed - 155 km/h; Acceleration from a place to 100 km/h - 14.3 s; The average operating consumption of fuel is 7.5 l/100 km. Dimensions, mm: length - 3995; width - 1663; Height - 1894; base - 2600; The track in front/back - 1405/1410. Engine: 4-cylinder, gasoline, in-line, 2 valves per cylinder; working volume - 1390 cm3; cylinder diameter and piston stroke - 75.8x77 mm; compression degree - 9.5; Power - 55 kW/75 liters. With. at 5500 rpm; The maximum torque is 114 N.M at 4250 rpm. Transmission: front wheel drive; The gearbox is a mechanical 5 -speed. Brakes: hydraulic with an amplifier and ABS; Front - disk ventilated, rear - disk. Tire size - 165/70R13.
Vladimir Solovyov
Photo by the author and Renault
Source: The magazine "Driving"
