Tell me about.... The Renault 4!

This website has a good set of buyers/price guides:
www.renault4.co.uk/guides.htm

The restoration section also shows many rust traps.

The GTL (with the plastic side trim on the doors) has an 1108cc engine and is the one to go for for everyday use. The engines seem to run ok on unleaded, but long high speed runs without an addtive will burn valves. Apparantly fine most of teh time, but a bit noisy/overstreched on the motorway. very spaciaous and practical, apparantly drive quite nicely and grip well. Gear lever is odd (dash-mounted 'umbrella' with push-pull-rotate action).

They do love to rust, but most panels are avaliable. There's even a company making new chassis, but at a price.

The rear shock absorbers are unusual - the shocks move in the opposite direction to a normal one (so they move in when the car moaves down) and most 'replacements' aren't correct. The forum has more information.

They are really rather fun in a kitch kind of way. A mate had one and I drove it a bit. If you want a small hatch with some character I reckon they are FTW and all that.

I'll just leave this here.

Saw this unrestored example on classics meeting in Norway.

More pictures needed I think.

Love 'em! my dad used to have these and swear by them back in the early 80's when i was a wee nipper, they must be tough if he couldn't break them!

Yeah sorry, I lost that webspace a couple of months ago. I'll put the archive up somewhere else shortly...

Absolutely superb little cars though, wonderful wafty French suspension (even when lowered to ridiculous levels!) Mine was a '78 with the 845cc, and would sit at 85 all day on the motorway due to infeasibly tall gearing. Always used unleaded with additive, and it was fine.

As said, they rust all over, but the worst part is always by the rear suspension arm hanger. My chassis snapped clean off, leaving the suspension supported only by the torsion bar.

Lowering is easy - a ten minute job at the front of undoing and removing the torsion bar mounts, then relocating the torsion bars round a couple of splines under the front passengers (mark them first!). Rears will be recalcitrant, as the torsion bars tend to rust to the mounts. It took me several hours with a drift/WD40/large mallet to convince them to move.

There is a lovely quirk with the 4 in that the wheelbase on one side is shorter than that on the other due to the design of the rear suspension. Also, if you lower the rear, you then need longer dampers, not shorter ones!