I owned a Berlingo for a while but sadly wrote it off after cartwheeling it down a slope – saying that, all passengers and contents were fine, but the outer shell was rather rough afterwards!
I really liked it, as much as it was a van-based vehicle, it was fine to drive – would happily take me around the country over pretty much every road and hardened surface without too much hassle – only problem I’ve had with it was trying to drive in foot thick snow…didn’t make it.
Space-wise – it carried 3 bikes and 3 bodies plus gear without any problems – only 1 bike had a wheel off but everything else rolled in and rolled out the rear. The rear seat is easy enough to remove, you need a torx head to remove the seat but best thing is to leave the single seat in and you can still carry 3 bodies. If you do remove the double seat you also get another 6″ of space in the back as the seat doesn’t take up any room.
I had the 1.9 diesel – it took an age to go anywhere but would happily sit at 70mph once there…I was getting about 600 out the tank. We drove a turbo’d version in Spain and it was superb compared to the standard diesel – same economy, just with a bit more power.
I did look at the Kangoo at the time but decided against it as it was slightly narrower and shorter in the storage space, the Berlingo was bigger. The Peugeot Partner is the same as the Berlingo but with a more ‘premium’ name to it and has a few standard things that the Citreon doesn’t (like a passenger air bag) – saying that, since the introduction of the new model, that has changed…my next car is probably going to be a new style Berlingo as it was ugly as sin so no-one would be interested in it, but it was supremely practical.
The only thing I didn’t try in the car was a full-on DH bike, but it did take some 6″ bouncers without any probs…I ride a large sized frame and my Trance fitted in nicely.
Got pictures on my Flickr account of the car in Spain with 2 bikes in the boot – can’t link to them from here as my work account doesn’t give me access to Flickr, but if you go to http://www.richardbarton.co.uk, I think one of the Collections on that main page is Bikes in a Berlingo…only a couple of snaps but it shows the storage is simple.
I’d recommend a Berlingo…immensely practical, very good economy and perhaps the last car you will ever need.