Here's a summary of the 2010 gathering in south-east England. I only snapped a few pictures and video clips, but the latter have been merged with bits of the 2006 and 2008 events to form a longer video available on my YouTube page. You can find links to other articles about those prior gatherings in the Previous Events index.

The sight of a cluster of Renault 4s tootling through the winding lanes of the Kent countryside has in recent times become an annual event. On a spring Sunday in 2010, it was time for another go. Despite the previous couple of weeks proffering warm, pleasant, sun-shiney days, it was inevitable that this seasonal sequence would come to an abrubt halt the day before the R4 run was due, and the doom-laden forecasts might well have put off a number of owners up and down the land from coming to this corner of England and joining in.

I had missed a couple of the previous runs and indeed had hoped - not for sniffy hermit reasons but rather a desire to have settled on foreign shores by now - that I would not be around for this one either. However, a delay to my idealistic migratory plans instead gave me the opportunity to make it three consecutive alternate appearances on the Kent convoy. That is to say that I have been present every other year since the event began. I had scrubbed up my R4 Savane in advance by giving it another full wash and wax, only for my efforts to be spoiled just days later when the plume of Icleandic volcanic ash arrived and deposited itself inconsiderately across the bodywork like a vengeful waiter might lavish white pepper on a freshly served meringue.

On the previous two trips, I had set off a bit late but caught up by doing a steady eighty on the motorways through Surrey and Kent, arriving in the nick of time. I knew that on this occasion I should be more careful and allow for a longer journey due to the lesser engine capacity of my 956cc TL. That proved a necessary caution since I still reached the start point with just five minutes to spare, taking twenty minutes over the usual hour, though I had spent a fair part of the journey stuck behind somebody with their cruise control set to 50mph. When I pulled into the services on the M2, I found a healthy crowd of 4 owners in the car park, including the event organiser Derek Flavell and his family.

We made the usual exit onto the motorway followed by an immediate diversion off at the next junction, onto small roads that led first around the northern fringes of the county near the Thames estuary, footage of which can be seen on the short video clips. The weather was truly abhorrent and many of the smaller roads through which we weaved were flooded. A few stops were made for photos destined for the 4L Magazine, but we abandoned the picnic idea halfway through the route since the rain was still bucketing down.

The run was quite a long one and it seemed like we must have traversed most of Kent by the time we reached the end point, but I was miffed to look up our location in my road atlas and find that we were now just a few miles down the road from where we had started. The wiggly way there must have looped around the county but the heavy grey skies would have offered no clues in terms of sun direction.

The finishing spot was the Bredgar and Wormshill Light Railway, a privately owned narrow gauge line that has a museum containing some engines and a model railway, with adjacent tearooms. The Renault 4s gathered out on an exposed field used for the parking area (see below), and the lousy wet weather was compounded by very cold temperatures and gusty winds which turned umbrellas inside out. It really was the worst day in weeks and a great shame, because more than a dozen cars had made the effort to attend. The venue was being shared with the Austin 7 Owners Club and the Morgan Owners Club, although only the latter seemed to have turned up, and they soon disappeared after we arrived.

The weather was one thing, but one unfortunate incident en route had created further misery for two of the day's attendees, when one R4 sustained some damage from another. Indeed, it would seem that the abysmal conditions and the steamed up windows inside the vehicles may have contributed to the accident. I'm not going to go into details because I know that it was upsetting for both parties involved, but they left in gloomy spirits and I hope that nobody will be put off from participating in future events as a consequence.

So, after a tour of the museum and lunch inside the snug shelter of either the heated tearoom or the cosy Renault 4, some braved the elements out on the field, where an R16 could be spotted amongst the other Renaults on display. I had a word with the owners of two classic vehicles parked alongside that I learnt were being provided for the occasion by Renault Histoire & Collection, or at least their UK arm. One 1963 model (below) had been the property of Renault themselves and then under the ownership of John Henderson of the ROC GB. It was near immaculate, but what a day to bring it out for a showing! There was grass all over the low-hanging mudflaps but I suspect the whole underside will have required a good clean-up after the day was over.

I was informed that this rare right-hand drive was a luxury edition which had another of those engine types I seem to have forgotten existed. My own Savane is fitted with the 956cc variant that is more commonly encountered in foreign markets where the TL edition experienced extended sales in the Four's latter life. Until I purchased my French model in 2009, I had buried this detail away in my mind for many years and it was only retrieved when I glanced at the specifications in the handbook. Whilst most of the very early Renault 4s were fitted with a 747cc engine, some like the model on display here had a 903cc beast of its day.

Parked adjacent, though only semi-visible in my photo, was the other collection example wheeled out by Renault, an original, right-hand drive Plein Air. Back in the early days of my running this site, I had learned of the apparent existence of just two of these convertibles in the United Kingdom. One of the owners had a yellow version which I believe he later sold, and there was another green edition lurking elsewhere in Britain. So it was a surprise to stumble across this white one which had probably been locked up for a long while.

I also learnt another interesting fact, that Renault UK did in fact receive some of the very early Clan models, and quite possibly the Savane too, prior to the discontinuation of R4 sales in the Irish and British markets around 1986. If anybody has further info on this or better still some photos, please send it here.

It would have been nice to have spent longer perusing the models on display, brought along by some of the usual suspects and a few faces I'd not seen before, but the wind and chilly temperatures were so repellent that nobody could bear to stand outside for much longer. I had come equipped with three layers and a pack-a-mac, plus an umbrella which did the usual back-to-front transformations one expects of a device that has never been adequately modernised in centuries to cope with one simple force of nature, but the oblique angle of the incessant rain was causing my bottom half to get absolutely drenched. One owner tried to keep spirits up by way of a barrel of beer in his boot, but nothing short of a hot cocoa and an early bed were my primary desires.

It was communally decided to wrap things up for the day and one by one the cars departed for their respective corners of Britain. There had been a decent display in the line-up (below) consisting of several well maintained examples. My own commanded a little attention, which is an unusual occurrence for me having previously owned a trusty but rusty old thing. Although I had been out with the bucket and the hand stocking more than once since purchasing the car some months earlier, I felt embarrassed to receive compliments for the condition of my car since that was something largely out of my own hands. I suppose I wish that credit could be distributed to those whose love and passion for the Renault 4 causes them to merely own one and keep it running in this day and age, and my previous model, Reflexia, never got any such attention because it was always judged solely by its external appearance. Then again, I suppose hoping for judgement by personality is a big enough ask in the human world, let alone in that of the automobile.

After a group photograph in which we all stood around with hoods and umbrellas deployed, probably looking like a rather sad and mad bunch in driving rain with wet noses and soaked trousers, and destined to be remembered this way for eternity courtesy of a French magazine that will doubtless revel in this stereotypical notion of what it is like to be at an outdoor event in England, I got the engine running in my car so as to run the heating for a while. My hands were frozen and I could actually see a blue tinge running through them, on this day in early May. I needed to sit inside in the heat for twenty minutes just to thaw my digits enough to put them competently on the steering wheel, but at least this car had proper heating, unlike my cryogenic escapades in Reflexia eighteen months earlier during my trip across frozen Europe. My shoes and trousers were dripping wet and would remain so for the rest of the ride, but the constant warm air coming through the vents was appreciated.

The amount of shivering I had done in the space of a mere hour that day seemed to consume all the energy in my muscles and I felt almost bed-bound for another thirty-six hours afterwards, struggling to lift my lower limbs around the house and choosing instead to zonk out in front of the world snooker final. No drive I've ever done in a Renault 4, even those thirteen-hour marathons the length and breadth of France, has taken so much effort and sapped me of life. I had jetlag but had only driven back home from somewhere north-east of Tonbridge.

Despite all these weather woes, it was good to see that a fair few still turned up and we once again proved to anybody who happened to be in the vicinity of rural Kent that day that the Renault 4 still exists. The frequently encountered sentiments of 'I used to have one of those' will have rung out a few thousand times in passing vehicles and somebody somewhere will now be wishing they still did have one. Perhaps we'll be seeing them on a future run.

Next year's could be a biggie. It marks the 50th anniversary of the R4 and there's talk of invading France and other such necessities. If things go my way, I might already be there to join in at the other end. Thanks go to Derek and his wife as usual for organizing this event, and to Renault's reps who brought the special editions along, and you can all start practising your sundance routines now in the hope of better climes next time around.

View the video of the 2006, 2008 and 2010 Kent runs here.

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