Renault 4, A Quirky French Classic: 2022 Hagerty Bull Market List Part 9 | Carfection 4K 

As a soldier in the 1980’s had a Renault 4 GTL whilst stationed in Northern Ireland. My reason for ownership may well be the most obscure here? As a soldier there was a risk that someone would leave a nasty present under our vehicles. As our Family owned a Renault garage in Sudbury, I took notice that the Renault 4 had great ground clearance as well as a flat bottom, this meant it was easy to check the underside of the vehicle from across the street without getting on my hands and knees which shouted “security forces” to all and sundry who may be in the vicinity. It certainly gave me confidence when out and about, as well as being a lovely simple and reliable Family car. I would love to own another one.

I had one for about 7 years, did everything with it, including 2 rallyes. I did overturn mine, which is not easy :) Incredibly light, reliable, simple and funny car. Great to see it receiving some love and attention.

I grew up in Colombia and you'd see these everywhere, everyone had one at one point of their lives.

That brings some memories, my Youth in Portugal had plenty of hours on those! Simple cars simple times but timeless memories! :)

The reason there's a big metal umbrella handle reaching over the engine bay to the front-mounted gearbox, is that the powertrain was lifted wholesale from the rear-engined 4CV that preceded this car... and they just plonked the whole assembly at the front end instead without rearranging it.

I have one that I restored (still restoring technically), it's painted in the Citroën vert printemps, and I do think of it as the most beautiful car in history and I love it to bits down to every single bolt. It just brings me joy

Learned to drive in one of these when I was about 12, a van version that my grandparents had for their farm in Lincolnshire. Grandpa took me and my younger brother out to an old air strip and we learned how to drive, struggling with the gear shift. Great times!

Dad had one of these little cars. He even taught me how to drive on his R4 in 1998. I absolutely loved it. But dad hated the fact that the French used not-so-common standard screws and nuts on their cars. He always had to repair somewhere. It eventually went to scrap because the framework rusted beyond rework and repairing it became expensive to us. If we could preserve it I'd happily ride it today.

Fantastic little cars. Taught me a lot about driving & preserving momentum to carry speed- as it had pretty much zero acceleration. Think we had a total of 21 of these in our family…

For some reason this funny little renault fits him perfectly 😄

Yes Henry! This is the review I’ve been waiting for, possibly my favourite and earliest car memories, my Father had one mid seventies and a very good friend had one late eighties in which we used to carry unreasonable amounts of momentum thanks to that lightweight and supple suspension. Heady days...

I visited Colombia last Christmas for a month. It's amazing how many of these are still running around Colombia. Clever, clever design.

Thanks for the mention of the Amigo Fiel. Greetings from Colombia. And yes, the F4 Washington widely used by Laundries, post and telephone companies, repair services and so. Long life the Amigo Fiel!

You were right about these being popular in Colombia. My dad had one! Every time he sees one in good shape, he gets all nostalgic. Hell, me too! If you want one, you'll still find good ones in nice shape in Colombia. Charming little cars!

What a car! My Uncle had one in West Africa. It was commandeered at a military checkpoint. When the soldiers realized that they couldnt fathom the gearchange they returned it back to him!

Had a 4tl in late 70ies. Best car I ever owned, ultra reliable, ecominical, went places other cars got bogged down. I LOVED that gem.

I have an 87 ex Gendarme R4, so it has leather seats, non opening rear windows ( so les criminals under arrest could not escape) a siren button and a hole in the roof where the light went. And it's blue, of course. Absolutely great fun to drive on any surface and easy to maintain with a small engine in a large engine bay and no more complicated than a petrol lawnmower. 400 euros ten years ago, even if it was worth no more today it would still have been worth every cent

Just bought a late GTL in Spain, what a fabulous little thing!! Drove it some 2000 miles, from Wales to the Canaries, no probs whatsoever. Utterly charming, and huge space inside. Brilliant!!

That was a treat to see such a once common car appreciate in value!

I had a holiday in Croatia in 2017 and passed quite a few on the road - I owned one in the 80s - great fun to drive.

Bought a white R4L in 1964 as a student at the University of Strasbourg. Drove it on several trips all over Western Europe and the UK. Great car, loads of fun and was able to sell it after almost a year and a half for about US$200 less than I paid for it!

60 years! Congrats R4!!! I had one in my colleague years! Incredible memories! Great great cars! 2 Portuguese teams just finished the rally safari in Kenya with 2 of those!

6:09 I never thought I'd see someone pick a Renault 4 over a Ferrari 458. Love it

Ah!!! That’s the car my Grandad had when we were kids. We had my grand parents, my mother and us 5 kids in it and we went everywhere. We called it Samson because it could handle anything.

My first car. My mother had 3. Fantastic car, so many good memories!

Wonderful!! Speed is always just speed, but character in cars is very often found at much lower mph, like the R4 An R4 was nearly my first car, but I chose a Fiat Panda instead (another nuovo classic?), very different, very similar...

I remember being in the family Giulia Super age 11, following one of these hooning through the foothills of the Alps in SE France, four people onboard and two were hanging out of the windows to control the body roll, yacht style. To this day it still seems pretty scary (looong drops from the road) but they seemed to be having a great time. Also had a girlfriend back in the 80's who owned one, living in Wiltshire we used it several times for trips down to the Dorset/Devon/Cornwall coast and they're great memories, it really seemed to be the perfect car for those unhurried summer jaunts.

My grandad had a string of these on the family farm - I learned to drive in a retired one on the farm when I was 11 years old - it still had the bench seat, fixed seat belts and fly off hand brake rather than the ultra modern version in the video with individual seats and a floor mounted seat belt. Can completely understand why they were raced in Paris Dakar - they were fantastic off road having a very light foot print meant they did not get bogged in sticky mud very easily. In fact, @carpervert Jonny Smith mentioned his father brought a fleet of them as site vehicles when building the M5 in the somerset because they were the only vehicles that could easily cross the marshlands of the level

'Would it actually be fun to own and drive?' *grinning Catchpole*

As ever, charming. Strange, though, to have a Renault 4L review without hearing the term Quatrelle uttered once, particularly since we learned the Colombian and Swahili nicknames for the car.

Beautiful, practical, timeless, classy French Car great to see this little Renault featured.. love them!!

My MIL loved the R4. She had two of them at one stage in the 80/90s. One was blue (Fred) and one she painted pink (strangely also Fred 😂). Hay bales for her horses, sheep, lambs and even a Shetland pony went in the back.

The first car I ever drove, my father had one back in the 90s 🤩

Expat 🇬🇧 lives in Colombia 🇨🇴 I have an old Volvo 244 looking to buy one of these. Around $4000 love them ..new cars ...forget it

I yearn to own one and run it as a daily 🤣🤣. Love this

This is infinitely cooler than any Lamborghini special edition or 911. Love it

Makes me smile just watching the video. Great job Henry 👍

Back in the 80s, those renault were very popular in Colombia 🇨🇴 south America

Thats true here in colombia "el amigo fiel" there is a lot of Renault's 4 still running here in Colombia

I had a 4GTL in yellow and loved driving it, especially as the super-soft suspension was great for Norfolk's crummy back roads, where the performance, if not swift, was more than adequate. It was fun, and very suitable for DIY maintenance. It's a shame so many eventually rusted away or were scrapped, making this once numerous little car a highly priced rarity today. But many more must remain in countries far drier than the UK.

I remember my Aunt having one back in the 70’s, and then a Serbian I worked with brought over a 1990 late Serbian build one I got to travel in in about 2003.

My very first car over 40 years ago before the GTL came out - bright yellow with a full length black vinyl sunroof. I had it for 3 years and drove everywhere flat out as it would do 80 all day long on motorways. With such skinny tyres it was brilliant in the snow. The benefit of such a small engine is that you learnt to read the road well ahead in order to keep a constant speed. It had character and was so much fun. I have an Audi A8 now which is at the opposite end of the sophistication scale but I still miss my old R4.

In Argentina the 4L, was known as Cuatro Latas, which means four tin cans, implying that's what they are made of.

I love the R4 😍

My mother had one just before we left for Australia. It was great fun!

Just bought one 5 months ago, not really preserved like this one but still has a character 😍

My dad had one. Good memories.

Love it!

When I was young our family had a Renault 6. Similar layout and a very comfortable car. Alas it succumbed to tin worm.

That car suits you Henry. Quirky, but we still love you 😉

Surprisingly capable off road too!

Gotta love that gearbox whine !

The Renault "4" with no third side window was NOT a Renault R4, it was a Renault R3, and was the most basic variant available. The 'quatrelle' ALWAYS had the third window, right from the start. If performance is a problem, you could always swap out the mechanicals from an R5 Alpine (Gordini)...

Impeccable review as always with Henry. One tiny detail though: we say fourGonnette with a G like Gary.

I own and drive a 1991 Clan (daily). Yes, it is fun, but only f you have a decent tolerance to NVH and do not require comfort. Personally, I love it. My wife, not so much - and she loves the car too. Haven't lost the hope of driving it from Portugal to Slovenia and back at some point in the future, with stops in Guarda (PT), Valladolid (ES), Cléon & Billancourt (FR) and Milano (IT) - cities where the Renault 4 and the C1E engine were built - ending at the Novo Mesto plant where mine was assembled sometime in the early summer of 1990. Want to learn a bit more about replacement of ancilliaries and I definitely want to stock up spare fuel pumps, alternators, carb rebuild kits and whatnot, and will do a full rebuild of the suspension/steering/braking system before I actually do it.

you need to try it on gravel paths.. it is when it really comes alive! Missing the side exhaust of the earlier versions on this unit (Dodge Viper like).

I always loved the Renault 4 as much as the 2CV, but discovered the latter first at 1 or 2 years old.

Here in Sweden it was ironically (and successfully!) marketed as SKRYTBILEN, meaning something like “the flashy car”. My grandpa had an orange one in the 80’s.

Been enjoying this little series and guessing the value before it’s mentioned. Quite chuffed that I get most values pretty close 😀

It was my first and second car, (which even had LPG), transformed both to express my surfer life. Which included taking out the side doors during summers. To me, 'GTL' stood for Grand Tour Limo. I will not go into how I created showers of sparks with the tow bar at 150 km/h, driving the Route Du Soleil down to the med, getting thumbs up.

Weirdly enough you look more french in that car than most french people (I work in France so I have to know). 😉

that gear selector the reverse gear damn that took ages to learn

interestingly I see that interviews are conducted by Alex Goy - although perhaps not on this video - GOY is the registration of our early (60s) R4!

The real equivalent of the Citroën Mehari wasn't the Plein Air but the Rodeo 4 and 6. The Plein Air was more inspired by the Mini Moke and only 500 were sold.

I was raised in two of those.... later my father upgraded to a R20TX! And my first company car was one too but that one overheated like hell... probably blown head gasket! The dakar car had a 1.6l turbo and all wheel drive... a bit more snappy than the regular one.

Probably the greatest car of the post-war era. It can go 100 on the German Autobahn (although it gets very scary from 75🤣) and 4 on a french field. What a fantastic car!

It’s such a great little car. Does everything well. In great comfort. Only age and rust work against it.

My Dad had one of these back in the 70's, wasn't the flash GTL, it was a boggo R4L.

Simple. Straight forward. To the point ☝️ probably the best value for money ever built.

Guadix race circuit near Granada have a Renault 4 with Ferrari livery that's used as an odd job car. It's superb.

One of the best engineered cars in history.

Love 'em! Where can I buy one in Australia?!

There's a reason why very few of them have survived, they're rust buckets. I learned to drive in a Renault 6, the supposed upmarket version of the 4, and the most substantial part of that car was the canvas roof. It was replaced by a Metro 1.3S, which felt like a Ferrari by comparison.

I had an f4 van in the 1980s. I still regret selling it!

I have it, and I love it! :)

Cool. Hyundai Pony should be on the list too and AMC Pacer.

Welsh hill farmers car...........and the urban legend is that that gearshift inspired the shape of E.T. after Spielberg drove one .........

Nice :). What do you think of that wacky new drone concept that has a silhouette that could preview a modern remake of the 4? If there is a new 4 that does look like this (without the drone parts and looks retro modern like the 5 concept), then I reckon Renault will have another winner ;). It's nice to see classic car icons being revived (especially with the 2030/2035 new petrol/diesel car ban) 😃👍

The Hagerty Bull market list is closely following the Salvage Hunters - Classic Cars collection !

It suits you! :)

Professor Gordon Murray loves them which is high regard. Better than the 2Cv in many areas. Renault needs to reproduce an updated version WITHOUT ECU's mudding the waters. Formidable!

Love these, and couldn't find one when I had the money, for love nor money :|

Just bought me a 1979 TL, looking forwad to some nice trips

Remember grape picking and trips to the beach in France as a kid in friends one, then when I was older driving them myself in the Algerian desert early 90’s where there were literally hundreds of them at refineries we worked at as the locals crashed em all the time. Great cars though.

It's nice to see Henry driving a car I can actually afford, for a change

It’s a no-brainer, since it reminds the great 2CV 🇫🇷

Colombia: Renault 4 el "AMIGO FIEL"

This reminds me of the Hillman Husky.

😃my neighbor drove one, brings back memories from home! Has anyone done an LS swap yet ?

La Quatrelle est magnifique!

"I drive a Porsche what car do you have?" "Oh, you drive a Porsche that's nice. Well, you know I've got a mid-engined car myself"

Посмотрите Фильм И Дождь Смывает все следы Там У героя Алена точно такой немного более ранний❤❤❤😊

Been tearing around Mexico in one of these on Forza Horizon 5 (the nearest I'll ever get to the real thing), and If it's good enough for Pablo Escobar to race, it must be worth a look surely.

Would love to see an electric R4

Still lots of these on the roads in Morocco 👍

"Sacré bleu" 😁

Cars with character.....

waiting for Renault to finally have the idea of remake this car

the car's wheelbase is different. Is that true?

Yep, 2 French cars in the top 👌😌