Curbside Find: 2011 Renault Kangoo Bebop – Answering A Question Nobody Asked

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– Posted on August 1, 2025

Every so often, a carmaker will try something a bit quirky, a bit out of the ordinary and hope that it catches on. Renault did so with the Espace and laughed all the way to the bank, for instance. But for every surprise hit, there are several unqualified duds. The Kangoo Bebop is definitely the latter.

Some of you might not be acquainted with the standard issue Kangoo, so let’s start there. This was Renault’s highly successful line of vans / wagons, available in several variants aimed at families, businesses, campers, specialized services, etc., launched in 1997. The impressive amount of variants, the cute aesthetics, bright colour choices and capable underpinnings made the Kangoo one of Renault’s all-time hits. It even sold in decent numbers in Japan – a very unusual feat for an imported van.

In the spring of 2007, Renault unveiled the second generation Kangoo. It looked like an update, but it was in effect a different vehicle. The platform was new, hewn from the Mégane Scénic, and consequently quite a bit bigger. This was probably fine with most Kangoo clients, but Renault figured that some people might feel these had gotten too large.

And so the idea of a short-wheelbase Kangoo was born. Renault didn’t jump into this willy-nilly. They lobbed off 38.5cm between the wheels and gave the vehicle a complex modular rear end. They tested the waters with a show car in late 2007, which garnered a fair amount of favourable press. There was a no-nonsense panel van version (with a regular rear end) called Express Compact, which was actually launched first in late 2008. Then the whacky little Bebop went ahead a year later.

Strangely enough, Renault decided that the Bebop would only be sold in two markets – namely, France and Japan. Odd, given that the Kangoo sold pretty well in many other places. But the pricing of these little wundervans was on the dearer side, so that necessarily meant fewer potential markets. Still, only two?

The legal seating was only for four; the rear seats, which sat higher than the front ones and could be reclined, were also easily removed to add cargo space. For whatever reason, the Bebop could only be made with one petrol (1.6 litre, 106hp) or one Diesel (1.5 litre, 103hp) engine and only paired with a 5-speed manual. That last element should have been another red flag, as any car sold in Japan after about 1985 would necessarily feature an automatic transmission option.

The Bebop landed on the Japanese market (without the Diesel engine option) in September 2010, about a year after it had gone live in its native France. And by December 2011, it was taken off Renault’s range in both countries.

It turned out that nobody had any use for it, quirky sliding roof and all. People wanted the space provided by the standard Kangoo, not a microvan that cost as much to buy and run as a regular van. Sales in Japan are not known, but must have been pretty muted – they only lasted a year here, after all. In France, results were positively abysmal: about 1400 units sold in two years. The people had spoken, and the word was a loud and clear “NON.”

Renault thought they had invented a new type of specialized vehicle: the semi-luxurious short van, possibly aimed at well-to-do urbanites with no kids, but a need for a small amount of cargo space that could accommodate very tall objects. The term “hat on a hat” sort of works here. Or should that be “niche in a niche?” Either way, the concept was a bit too narrow (and too short) to work in real life.