This short article comes from Cláudio Nogueira in Évora, Portugal, whose R4 featured long ago in 2000 as the second Star Car in the Gallery. He sends these photos with some accompanying information.

'The purpose of my e-mail is to share with everyone the work I'm making in my 1976 R1123. I decided to learn more about the secrets of the 4L, preparing my "blue baby" to be painted. Remember "her"?!'

'"She" looks perfect but the reality is that rust and small scratches are all over the place. I decided to give my 4L a fresh look. The objectives are to keep original colour and give "her" back the original look, I mean, take off the radio, antenna, the right door mirror, etc, etc.

'I consider myself somehow skilled to perform these jobs but I needed to learn a lot about rust cleaning, rust conversion, metal preparation and insulation, materials available in the market, painting and so on. I decided to just prepare the car and leave the painting work for a professional.

'Actually "she" is in this condition:'

'After digging a little bit looking for rust I found several unpleasant surprises, like deep rust in the car body. Window frames are in very bad condition, probably impossible to recover.'

'I will keep in touch, telling about the status of my task. I hope "she" will be ready to roll during summer.'