Renault 4s from France

[reo24]

Not sure quite where to put this so it is also on the Wanted posts.
I live in S.W. France & we seem to be blessed with almost rust free cars, including Quatrelles. A friend of mine often returns to the UK to visit his aged parents & we think he should take the odd car back with him on his trailer. To that end we have been looking for a nice R4 & have found quite a few tidy ones. The problem is they are as much in demand here as they are in the UK & looking on this site it is difficult to judge what people are prepared to pay. It is as if sellers are embarrassed to put a price up as others seem to be quick to condemn "high" prices! I think that the R4 is about to become the next "big thing" & prices for a 30 year old mint car of any type should be above banger price. There is a car near me at the moment which is 2300 euros - a beautiful example in almost showroom condition. By the time it has been transported to the UK it would have to sell for about £3000. Nice 2 CVs sell for twice this. There are cheaper ones - we viewed a 1980 GTL, rust free, but the paintwork was faded & it had a few dents & odd front seats. A 6 hour round trip & the owner would not drop from 1600 euros.
My question is: Is anyone out there ready to pay serious money for a serious car or should we just drop the whole idea?
Your thoughts, please!

 

[ggcton]

I think you are raising a very good point and one which I think R4 owners should consider.
The problem here is the british climate and many UK cars have serious tin worm.
If you can weld and paint yourself then restoring a rusty 4 may just make economic sense but increasingly welding can run to thousands of pounds and a good paint job £2000 or more.
I have advised people for years when buying other Renault models to pay a bit more and buy the best car you can.
The renault 4 is most certainly moving into collectors car status and away from fun old banger. The interest at the shows and exhibitions is considerable and I have noticed prices rise in France and in Spain.
I have a 1983 GTL which I bought for £800 and it looked a tidy car it probably now owes me at least £4500 and it required no chassis welding.
In the future I would like an R4 Van and as I have a house in Spain I will almost certainly look for a rust free spanish model from the south of Spain.
Ten years ago 4Cvs and Dauphines were not too far from where the R4 is now at that time you could restore a car for £4000 in some cases the paint can cost more than that and I know that two UK first class Dauphine were sold for £10000 and £12000 one of them going to Japan.
Malcolm I think it is time to look at the price guide particularly in repect of A1 and above vehicles.If we do not start paying a good price for a good car the 4s will not be restored and most will end up in the crusher.It is easy to look and say there are pleanty in France but they are not right hand drive.perhaps it is even the time when cars have to be scrapped of retaining all the right hand drive components.
Gary

 

[reggie]

red r4

How many miles or klm has that red one done, also £3,000 is that imported with all fee's paid ?

Not sure quite where to put this so it is also on the Wanted posts.
I live in S.W. France & we seem to be blessed with almost rust free cars, including Quatrelles. A friend of mine often returns to the UK to visit his aged parents & we think he should take the odd car back with him on his trailer. To that end we have been looking for a nice R4 & have found quite a few tidy ones. The problem is they are as much in demand here as they are in the UK & looking on this site it is difficult to judge what people are prepared to pay. It is as if sellers are embarrassed to put a price up as others seem to be quick to condemn "high" prices! I think that the R4 is about to become the next "big thing" & prices for a 30 year old mint car of any type should be above banger price. There is a car near me at the moment which is 2300 euros - a beautiful example in almost showroom condition. By the time it has been transported to the UK it would have to sell for about £3000. Nice 2 CVs sell for twice this. There are cheaper ones - we viewed a 1980 GTL, rust free, but the paintwork was faded & it had a few dents & odd front seats. A 6 hour round trip & the owner would not drop from 1600 euros.
My question is: Is anyone out there ready to pay serious money for a serious car or should we just drop the whole idea?
Your thoughts, please!

 

[reo24]

Hi Reggie,
It has done 109000 kms, has been resprayed due to sun bleaching & is rust free with no repairs needed. Someone else is ahead of me on this but may have problems with his bank. Here's hoping!
The figure quoted is landed at my friend's house near Dover.

 

[reggie]

Starts getting expensive with import and VAT then registration, just done that this year with a merc from the USA, Would consider it for a low miles original though.

 

[malcolm]

Shouldn't be any import tax or VAT to pay on a car over 10 years old imported from Europe. Registration is a nominal fee (£50 or something) plus a years road tax.

 

[paulandpat]

VAT and import duties are irrelevant as long as the item is secondhand and purchased from another country in the EU - its one of the benefits of the EU.
VAT may be applicable on the import of a new car if the VAT was not paid in the country of purchase.
The main problem with getting a good price may be resistance to buying a LHD car, probably not as bad as trying to sell a RHD one to a frenchman, but it may cut the number of potential buyers. Personally I find it much easier to use a RHD car everyday here in France than using a LHD one in the UK (and we have both LHD and RHD cars here), mainly due to the numbers of cars on the road.
There are probably a larger percentage of older cars that are still reasonably well looked after here than in the UK, due to the higher secondhand prices of cars here, older cars tend not to become 'bangers' at such an early age as in the UK, where it seems that anything over 6 or 7 years old seems to be considered well past it. This is mainly due to the UK car market being totally distorted by the vast number of company cars on the road - last I heard over 50% of new car registrations were 'company' cars - these are often dumped on the second hand market at 3 years old - depressing prices all round.
The only way to find out for certain is to try it, see if you can find something you can bring back on the trailer the other way in order to increase the profit / minimize the risk.

 

[Lobster]

I'd say there is certainly a market for it, if I was looking for something old and French I would think that getting one from France to be perfectly sensible. Wouldn't just be restricted to R4s either. I'd imagine if you can source good condition 70's / early '80s cars then they would sell back here.

In terms of UK values, I'd say in the last three years R4 values have gone up significantly, buying any sort of half decent R4 for under £1000 is difficult now and good ones do seem to command in excess of £3k. As time goes on and they are recognised as a classic more and more, values can only increase.

 

[reggie]

My merc is 40 yr old - had to pay VAT, import duty was £50, because it was made in the EU, i had to get a certificate from merc to prove it was. ?

 

[paulandpat]

Reggie - since when was the USA in the EU - its where it was purchased that matters, not where it was made!

 

[pepper]

I registered my french 4 here at the beginning of the year, it cost me as Malcolm states about £50 and 6 months road fund licence.

It took a week and the official letter came through the door I popped down my local market for a set of plates (£10) and I was on the road.

Reggie, the Merc had to come back from the USA, that's where the problem lies, if you'd bought the same car in Europe you'd not have had to pay the VAT and import duty.

 

[reggie]

I know the USA isnt in the EU, what i didnt know was you dont pay VAT if you import from the EU, The VAT i paid would have bought a nice r4 - bugger

 

[ggcton]

Regarding prices Malcolm, Derek and myself had a talk about this matter at the RCCC AGM today.
Derek spoke of the realistic costs of putting a car into a safe roadworthy condition and the cost of producing a top car.
Also for the first time today I saw Malcolm's latest restoration with the gordini engine. This car was stunning and should be insured in my view for 10K.
When you look at the price guide on this forum it is just that, a guide to help give the purchaser and seller an Idea but cars like Malcolm's would fall well beyond the guide.
I suspect if you were asking a professional company to reproduce a car of the quality you would get little change out of £15000 or more.
So lets all be more realistic, If you do manage to pick up a gleeming car requiring no work for less than £2000 you were either very lucky or the seller has not been aware of the values for some time.

Going back to the Red car at the beginning of this posting.If it is as good as it looks and requires no work at all it is worth £3500 all day long and if RHD more in the UK market.
Gary

 

[reo24]

Sadly the red R4 shown was sold, but my friend is returning with a car soon & will advertise it on this site first.

 

[mike4gtl]

Ian found me a 4L while i was at his repairing his bx at the weekend but when i went to look at it i think it was being used as a chicken shed as it was penned in a run with chickens running around it. There was another one there in at the top of the garden hidden under a tree but after closer inspection it has a Robin living inside it and no rear trailing arms. However i think brining rust free 4l's to the Uk is a very good idea because even if the body if rough we can still use the rust free chassis.

Michael

 

[Stuart Delahoy]

I can confirm having done this several times now that there are no fees and no scary paperwork involved.

Just a fee to the DVLA for the registration, about £50 and thats it if the car comes from the EU.

Simple.

Stuart

 

[reo24]

Just to let you all know that the blue GTL will be in the UK from this Saturday, 11th December & Peter can be reached on 07561 028745.
If time allows the required welding could be done before a sale, leaving a simple change of wings & paint for the new owner to do!

 

[Jason the Dauphin]

A few points to make from this -
1. No matter how much you've spent restoring a car it doesn't mean its worth what it owes you, but only what the market would tolerate.

2 The French pay a lot more for cars secondhand generally than we do. For example I've seen Citroen ZXs for spares advertised for 800euros!!! Also there are many thousands of R4s in France, a national magazine and large long standing following. We have none of these things here.

3 Some 2CVs in France go for high prices, but lots of Dyane and Ami models sell for well under 2000euros, often under 1000, and in the UK despite the hype most nice 2CVs in the club magazine sell for £2000 or under.

4 Beware - that yellow GTL on Ebay right now was meant to be immaculate and was sold for oooh was it £3495? I thought that a ridiculous price. Now look - 6 months on and its going for £255 with awful rot in the rear suspension mountings! Feel very sorry for who bought that.

5 Increased values haven't saved 2CVs it seems - the UK 2CV population has halved since 2007! Trying to bump up your own prices won't really make any difference if there's only a few hundred R4s in the country!

This is all sounding like when the 2CV brigade started doing the same thing, all you do is cut your nose off to spite your face. Because except for us fanatics (a tiny minority) NOBODY else wants our chosen car. So the only people paying more are US.

So be careful what you wish for?!

 

[ggcton]

No one would advise paying good money for poor cars and restoration costs are rarely recovered but paying good money for good cars makes sense as it saves a lot in the long run.

I also feel sorry for the person who bought the yellow car but had they had more experience and had read the guides on this forum they would not have spent that amount of money for that car.

I have restored a number of old Renaults to high standards and have usually sold them for half the restoration cost but that is not why we do them.
One dauphine I restored for about 5K I sold for £3500 about four years ago was sold a few weeks ago for over £12,000.

So be careful what you buy, you can wish for a pristine 4 for £1200 but it is very unlikly to happen.
Gary

 

[reo24]

People who are fans of a particular marque are usually very clued up on their weak points. When choosing a car you need to look at it, poke about & ensure that you know what you are buying. A friend recently sold a '94 Range Rover 4 litre to a fanatic who paid £4500 for it. - A high price for an old RR! Usually about £1000.
But for a 22000 miler with all extras & no rust? The new owner sold it on 3 months later for £8750. It really was a "minter"!
I credit the members of this club with enough common sense to know what they are looking at & I'm sure that they know the cost of welding etc enough to know that the least welding required makes for a more useable classic rather than just another old banger.