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Why the lack of interest Now

M

Martin Hall

Enthusiast
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Havent posted for a while due to work away
It seems in France a change in favour for the R4 in my area anyway
There are cars every where for sale and no one wants them I had collected 14 at one point last year only 1 now But locals are still leaving cars at my old yard I have to take them to the local scrap yard now and dont even get a cent for them just to keep the neighbours happy Seems a bit different to a couple of years ago when even a total restoration job was getting 200 euros or more
It seems a lot of members on the forum are selling their cars as well
A friend who runs a classic car sales yard had 22 in stock but wont take anymore even for free
Is this the same every where in France I would be interested to know
 
Are you talking about old cars in general or specifically about R4s?
 
Yes Renault 4`s especially
I have been working in Ireland near Watreford , Didnt see any R4`s there at all But a lot of Japanese cars Toyota in particular
I had a 99 reg car which was considered very old by the guys I was working with
 
If you would like to know, I see that interest on R4s is rising here in Greece! Maybe because we have lost a lot of them on the past 10 years...and people who owned one once, suddently remember it. But offer is too limited. As far as I know, only two R4s were advertised for sale the last year!! While 5 years ago, it was typical to see 2-3 every month. It is sad, but it is reality.
 
All the Renault 4's rusted away. They used to be absolutely everywhere.

Japanese cars are popular now because of their reputation for reliability.
 
angel said:
If you would like to know, I see that interest on R4s is rising here in Greece! Maybe because we have lost a lot of them on the past 10 years...and people who owned one once, suddently remember it. But offer is too limited. As far as I know, only two R4s were advertised for sale the last year!! While 5 years ago, it was typical to see 2-3 every month. It is sad, but it is reality.
Click to expand...

It is similar over here, with the oil prices going up people are starting to think about fuel consumption and no one can beat R4 in that. Small business owners also prefer them, so as fishermen etc.
 
Martin Hall said:
Havent posted for a while due to work away
It seems in France a change in favour for the R4 in my area anyway
There are cars every where for sale and no one wants them I had collected 14 at one point last year only 1 now But locals are still leaving cars at my old yard I have to take them to the local scrap yard now and dont even get a cent for them just to keep the neighbours happy Seems a bit different to a couple of years ago when even a total restoration job was getting 200 euros or more
It seems a lot of members on the forum are selling their cars as well
A friend who runs a classic car sales yard had 22 in stock but wont take anymore even for free
Is this the same every where in France I would be interested to know
Click to expand...
You say you take the cars to the scarp yard and dont get anything for them ?surely scrap metal is worth the same in France as it is here , even in southern scotland our local dismantler will give £80 cash and pick up no matter what car you have even a R4 and what is he going to keep parts wise to make profit on ,probably nowt, it's staight into the crusher so theres still a good profit somewhere ,thank China and India and consumers wanting more and cheaper goods for that . I would have thought it was the same in France.What i have noticed is that no one here seems to want cars over ten years old Ive seen better cars in the scrap yard than we drive around ,why some of them are there is beyond me as many have no obvious signs of damage.
 
In the year or so I have been driving my R4, I have seen about 5 others on the road! Being quite new to them, I can't tell how many used to be on the road say 10 years ago? My one is the only car I have in London, so I use it quite a bit (get tube to work though), and done about 6000 miles last year. When I've been to France I tend to see more in Brittany and Normandy than I do when further North and in Paris. I would say I see about the same amount of R4's as 2cv's when in France.

I've noticed there are not that many for sale in this country, well haven't been many on ebay recently.
 
..Have you seen me?..

Hello Sir Beige Belgian

Which road in Balham do you live?

Lady Dulwich Green
 
Last edited by a moderator:
ian Stanbury said:
Hello Sir Beige Belgian

Which road in Balham do you live?

Lady Dulwich Green
Click to expand...

Hello, I live on Pentney Road, which is at the bottom of Tooting Bec common.

A mile or so away from me, I have noticed (when I missed a turning!) 2 Renault 4's just off Trinity Road, Wandsworth Common.

Matt
 
Reply to seujimmy

No over here the scrap yards are different to the UK There are no weighbridges You just go in If you are lucky and anyone bothers to come out the office They will grab the car off your truck with a hydralic grab smash the car as flat as it will go then plie it up waiting for transport The cars go whole engine gearbox axles trim everything
If you are unlucky as I usually am you unload yourself Nothing is paid for the scrap I have a friend round the Bristol area Uk that picks up scarp cars for a living and gets 100 pounds per ton at the moment 10 cars a day 1000 pounds a day not bad money

I think the CT french MOT is getting tougher now as well
 
I live in the Limousin area which is quite agricultural and there is still quite a lot of cars 15yrs plus I get to see R4s everyday even if I stay at home, probably half a dozen.
I still go knocking if I see a car languishing obviously unused but still they require €1000 for one needing work 300€ for basket cases scrappys come by at least once a week and take all my rubbish and I understand they get €200 a tonne.
The locals call my place "the musee" on account of my collection and still send people here asking me if I want more
Normal R4 with CT are fetching €1500 add another €1000 for very nice low KLM examples? I was offered a Bye Bye for 3000 only last month
2CVs fetch double all the above prices:rolleyes: although I paid a bottle of pastis for a 2CV6 with no CT but only 38000klm
Main dealers are taking vehicles in part exchange and crushing them if they are over 15yrs old, I picked up a beautiful like new citroen BX GTI for 1000€ because the guy did nt have the heart to PX it for his new peugeot
as they told him thats what they are to do with it, it had 48000klm on it and looked new
I sold it for 2700€:cool:
the CT is getting more strict so it should produce more for sale I think
 
I've sensed changes in the UK over the last few years.

Seems there were thousands of the things when they were new. Most died of natural causes but a few little used of well maintained cars lived on in the hands of people who liked them or just wanted cheap transport.

Now the newest car sold in the UK is 22 years old. They are becoming more of a hassle to run as everyday cars by non-mechanically minded people who might buy other cheap cars. Interest seemed to drop off a a few years ago, presumably for that reason.

Now the owners tend to be enthusiasts. People who don't mind paying for the odd bit of welding, or people that have their own welders. Prices in the UK have increased, and the forum is slowly getting more busy.

I wouldn't be surprised if France isn't in that dip between everyday owners and enthusiasts.
 
I think you might be right, even though they talk about them affectionately here "my dad had one when I was young" sort of thing I think, I drive around in my DS and people stare in awe even applaude I drive around in the R4 no one even blinks Thats the problem I think because there are still so many of them around here in France at least compared to the 2cv they arent missed enough to be cult classic if you know what I mean.
 
Greeney in France said:
I think you might be right, even though they talk about them affectionately here "my dad had one when I was young" sort of thing I think, I drive around in my DS and people stare in awe even applaude I drive around in the R4 no one even blinks Thats the problem I think because there are still so many of them around here in France at least compared to the 2cv they arent missed enough to be cult classic if you know what I mean.
Click to expand...

That's exactly what I have been told.

It will only change when there are few enough left
 
Yes I think Malcom has hit the nail on the head as it were

Clio`s and Twingos for instance are now so cheap people would buy something a bit newer rather than older cars that need lots of work to keep them on the road

Thought you might find this link interesting
Leboncoin is a French classied listing that sells everything bit like ebay but without the charges
I put in a seach for r4 national This is what it came up with

http://www.leboncoin.fr/li?q=r4&ca=6_s&th=1&c=2&w=3&zz=ex:75001&ps=&pe=1&rs=&re=&ms=&me=
 
Plenty in everyday 'local' use down here in the Pyrenees - those for sale as decent runners seem to be around the 1500 euro mark.....a neighbour has just bought a fridge white Clan out of a little old ladies garage with 8,000 ( eight thousand) km on it. It's quite clean.......

David
 
I suspect Malcolm is right - here in France the R4 is now in 'banger' territory.
The differences in secondhand car prices here and in the UK is interesting, there has been a thread recently on angloinfo normandie about the difference in prices, asking why prices here are so high. I wondered whether the question should have been why the prices in the UK are so low. The UK s/h car market is skewed by the large number of company cars (over 50% the last time I heard) which depresses 2nd hand values. I recently bought in the UK a perfectly acceptable Citroen BX turbo diesel estate for £150 that would cost about 1500 euros here, easily the most comfortable car I have ever had, and does about 50 to the gallon.
The comparison with the 2cv is also interesting. We went to the autojumble at Pontorson on Sunday - there were loads of 2cv bits for sale, but only a few R4 ones. The Mehari Club Cassis catalogue was given away free (for about the 5th year running to our knowledge), and it seems that if money was no object it would be perfectly possible to build a new 2cv from scratch - almost everything seemed to be available, including a bewildering array of seat trims etc.
It will be interesting to see if a lot of what we call 'modern porridge' - anything built in the last 15 years for example - survives to become a 'classic car', with all the electric / electronic parts that they use I somehow doubt it. Greeney's DS may be complicated - but at least you can find all the pipes and repair them all, at least its all mechanical!!
 
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