Renault 4 - an original utility country car

[borderterribles]

The manager on the estate I did my sandwich year had a few of these one after the other and he used to appear all over the place in them. He never really gave much thought to where he was driving mind you but rarely had to be "rescued". It was quite a sight to see a bright red Renault 4 entering a field where the combines were working and be driven across the rows of straw, used to drive the baler man potty, the resulting moving straw heap would be a thing of beauty.
All that changed when it caught fire one day with all the straw that was bundled up underneath! That was back in the days of strawburning so we were a little more geared up to deal with straw fires with kit already on tractors to make firebreaks at the drop of a hat.
Rallying round the farms in them was a bit of fun for us as students but the umbrella handle handbrake was a tricky one for handbrake turns and the hockey stick gearlever didn't take a lot of abuse and would look quite forlorn when it detached itself from the rest of the linkage, just dangling from the dashboard.

Oh yes, had the gearstick become detached a few times! No drama though. Put the bonnet up, ( hinged from the front rather than from the front of the windscreen), a meaty rubber band as a temporary fix to secure the end of the hockey stick to the shaft rising from the gearbox and she's good to go!

 

[honeyend]

Citroen AX, my first new car when they came out, you could have red or white. Like LR, apart from a basic radio it had no extras, even down to the fuel empty light on a the gauge, as I found out on a motorway.
I have had four. They are so light that if you drive fast enough they skim the mud, high wheel base, so you can dodge the ruts, and take out the very basic thin seats, its a dog carrier and I could get four bales of hay in it. At one point I was buying them with low mileage, for £350 -£500, and as they were cheap to insure my children could learn to drive in them. I regret giving the last one away to a lad who was learning to drive, who wrote it off. They are now a 'classic' car.

 

[JP1]

Citroen AX, my first new car when they came out, you could have red or white. Like LR, apart from a basic radio it had no extras, even down to the fuel empty light on a the gauge, as I found out on a motorway.
I have had four. They are so light that if you drive fast enough they skim the mud, high wheel base, so you can dodge the ruts, and take out the very basic thin seats, its a dog carrier and I could get four bales of hay in it. At one point I was buying them with low mileage, for £350 -£500, and as they were cheap to insure my children could learn to drive in them. I regret giving the last one away to a lad who was learning to drive, who wrote it off. They are now a 'classic' car.

Mother had one. Fibreglass bonnet or boot from memory?

Thing that stuck in my mind was the tall deep pockets in the front doors to take your litre Evian bottle

 

[JeepJeep]

 

[Steevo]

Is that @Cab-over Pete ?!

 

[Still Farming]

On a top gear show the other night tramping across countryside.

 

[borderterribles]

Thanks for posting those pictures. I hadn't thought for ages just what super , affordable vehicles they were. I had forgotten about the foldy uppy bit over the van back door, too!

 

[BBC]

Yes, that's right. My first car was a Renault 4 and it was the first of six that I owned, including a couple of vans.They carried everything from livestock to tractor parts . They had fabulous traction off-road, were cheap and simple to maintain and very reliable. I always thought that the gearbox was a logical arrangement. It was on the front of the engine and the gear stick/hockey stick went through the bulkhead, over the top of the engine, connecting to the gearbox itself, with the drive to the front wheels coming out of the sides of the box. If I remember correctly, anyway. It is almost forty years since I had one. Great little cars.

Had the gearbox fail and set about replacing it. Very easy to get at and remove. Found a scrap yard that had a choice of two, but they warned me that they were different because the design had been changed at some stage. Chose what I thought looked the same, but after putting it in and connected the half shafts up it was obvious I’d got the wrong one as I had four reverse and one forward gear!
Had great fun driving mates down to the pub that evening

 

[Cowabunga]

The Renault 4 and 5 are interesting cars because the two engines they used ran in different directions, therefore the different turning [handed] differentials. That’s not all though, because the gearbox was mounted in front of the engine, so the flywheel and therefore ‘number one’ cylinder was also on the front, rather than at the back or one side or another. The conventional way of numbering cylinders is from the flywheel end. If I remember correctly the Renault engines of the time were also of the wet cylinder liner type, which I think was unusual for car engines even back then. Could be wrong, because the last time I had anything to do with the rather great Renault 4 was 46 years ago

 

[glasshouse]

Much preferred the Renault 5...........

"Oohh, Nicole".........

Clio

 

[glasshouse]

We need vehicles like that again

 

[JP1]

We need vehicles like that again

Agreed

An electric run version of the Mehari built in India and costing £5k would be a start

 

[JeepJeep]

One of these do the job... Kubelwagen

 

[Fordson1]

Not sure if this is correct but heard once that the rear wheels of the R4 were purposely out of line i.e. one further forward than the other. Something to do with handling. The story goes that one went into a repair shop after an accident and not realising the design they had awful trouble trying to line up the wheels! Or maybe it's just a myth.

 

[sawdust]

The one on the estate had little chrome handles on the front about the bumper to pull it off the road when it broke down!

 

[sawdust]

The one on the estate had little chrome handles on the front about the bumper to pull it off the road when it broke down!

Like these

 

[JeepJeep]

AX Mentioned.....

I do a little bit with French stuff....... normally as I can find OEM stuff..... More US Stutff



4x4 Factory AX

 

[JeepJeep]

4x4 AX.......

I had a ZX Reflex company car..... 1,9d Flat out up down M56 / M6

Did WRC one night... Humpback bridge outside Llandyrnog..... No time to break. she was ok.. I was happy craic on

 

[smcapstick]

My first car was an AX. It cuts me £25 as a none-runner.
I managed to get the engine running when I got home… for about 15 seconds… before piston #3 popped it’s head out of the side of the block.

 

[Barleycorn]

Not sure if this is correct but heard once that the rear wheels of the R4 were purposely out of line i.e. one further forward than the other. Something to do with handling. The story goes that one went into a repair shop after an accident and not realising the design they had awful trouble trying to line up the wheels! Or maybe it's just a myth.

The R16 was the same, they used torsion bars one in from the other from different sides for the suspension.