To hell with the new. Vive la Renault 4! Door James May

[Blauwtje]

To hell with the new. Vive la Renault 4!

While it is blissful to return to Blighty after a stretch across the channel, there is, suprisingly, much to miss about France - in particular one its enduring symbols, writes James May van Top Gear

By the time you read this, my French wine tour will be over. I will have crossed the silver sea ("which serves it in the office of a wall, or as a moat defensive to a house" etc) and returned to the sceptred isle.

And as I return early today, I can already tell you exactly what I'll be doing at whatever time you're reading this newspaper. If it's between 9am and 11am, I'll be drinking several large mugs of builders' tea made with the one ingredient that the French, for all their talk of terroir, cannot readily provide, namely fresh milk not ruined by the UHT process. I know it's a bit predictable for me to bang on about the inability of foreigners to knock up a cup of char, but let's not be soft about this. If the people of Somerset can make brie, the people of Lyon should be able to make tea. The about 1pm, I'll be in the Ritz (not that Ritz - it's a café at the end of my road), after which I'm going to have a long lie-down with my cat, during which I hope to shake off the terrible 'Allo 'Allo! accent I've accidentally acquired. By eight I'll be ready for dinner, which I imagine will be either cod and chips or a chicken tikka bhuna, after which I shall retire to the local pub and shut the lid on my holiday wine romance with several pints of Fullers. That lot should see me pretty much back to normal.

There are quite a few things I'm not going to miss about France. Oz Clarke's endless talk of the woody high notes; garlic, the devil's own vegetable; shops and, indeed, whole towns that are fermé; camping; bread and jam for breakfast; French motorway sandwiches; and manigance. This is a new French word I've learnt, meaning, I'm told, a combination of hanky-panky, jiggery-pokery and skulduggery. I'm not entirely sure what any of those things are individually and in English, so imagine how obstructive they are when combined in one Frenchman.

At the same time, there's a lot I will miss about France. Some fine wines, to be honest; some magnificent Frenchmen, especially the mechanic who rebuilt the Jag's exhaust after I tore it off on an old tank trap in the Alsace region (given the history of the place, it's difficult to know which nation to blame for this); amusing cheeses; châteaux; lovely D-roads; bébéfoot; and the sort of ribaldry that can only develop between two blokes on a very long car journey.

And the Renault 4. The Citroën 2CV is perhaps more iconic, and more people would recognise one, but it is the Renault 4 that truly endures. The easily repaired Citroën is becoming surprisingly rare these days, but the Renault is still everywhere. You cannot drive for more than an hour in France, and often only for 10 minutes, without seeing a Renault 4 doing what it was meant to do, which is usually transporting a pig or something like that. Spotting Renault 4s will never pall as an en-route divertissement.

The Renault 4, I suspect, is subject to appellation d'origine contrôlée. If it isn't, it certainly should be. The Renault 4, as the president himself once said, speaks volumes for France. It is more than a simple people's car; it is the wheeled totem of France's desire to retain so many of its peasantine traditions, its rural bedrock. It is not a classic coveted by enthusiasts, as the Renault Dauphine or Citroën Big 6 is. It is merely an old car from an old world order that refuses to give up.

Italy has a car like this in the original Fiat Cinquecento. They are still around in huge numbers, confirming the efficacy of the original simple design in their ability to keep going. Like the Renault 4 in France, they are not preserved relics. They are simply still current. People are driving Renault 4s and Fiat Cinquecentos because somehow, and in direct contravention of all logic, it still makes sense to do so.

I do not think Britain has a car like this. We have the Morris Minor, the MkII Jaguar, the original Mini and the MG Midget. Very British they certainly all are, but in very different ways. And they are now largely in the hands of devotees. There is not one single and ubiquitous car that feels like the product of some government initiative designed to reaffirm The British Way.

The Renault 4 is like that, a car that rumbles on in open defiance of the new world order, and in bloody-minded denial of everything that has happened since. A bit like the French wine business, really.

[brecht]

leuk stukje!

Uit welk blad komt dit?

[Mark4GTL]

idd leuk stuk, vooral omdat ze een andere favoriet van mij ook noemen, de Morris Minor

[Blauwtje]

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/motoring/mai ... rgetRule=5

Hier komt het vandaan.

[-Trelleur-]

Spotting Renault 4s will never pall as an en-route divertissement.

The Renault 4 is like that, a car that rumbles on in open defiance of the new world order, and in bloody-minded denial of everything that has happened since.

Helemaal juist!