I finished my last entry into this section by commenting on my dear Reflexia with the poignant words: 'Most cars wouldn't expect to still be around at her age.' Alas, after five loyal years in my ownership and twenty-five years on the road, these images from September 2009 mark the last days of her time in my hands. There still remains the slim possibility that some saviour will spare her, but regretfully that hero figure shall not be me. On returning to England after her most recent excursion to France, I put her through the MOT and received the rather deflating news that the usual few hundred pounds of annual repairs may not be enough this time around. The car was still running soundly enough, but my recent observations of the temperature light illuminating at higher speeds appear to be indicative of carburettor and/or other issues that will likely rear their head before long. Although it would be perfectly possible for the MOT work itself to be completed quickly, I had to question the longer term viability of keeping her versus the economic reality of being better off getting hold of another. And hence, the image above, which reveals a new successor following closely behind Reflexia.

I'd never taken a snap of Reflexia's interior. Only my second R4, Nicolexia, had seen her scruffy insides caught on camera. So this shot proves for posterity that she was kitted out with the alternative beige and brown check pattern on the seats and internal door cards. My previous two cars had the more typically tartan red and blue check trim. Inside all was very well, with no leaks. It's the exterior that posed the principal problem.

Although not clearly visible in the image above, Reflexia (right) had a lot of body hang-ups and had been concerned about her appearance for some time. Ever since she acquired the unfortunate scratch on her bonnet the day before my purchase, she sadly went cosmetically downhill forever after. This was in part my fault for not once making the effort to give the car a decent hand wash and wax during the five years it was mine. Because of the few bits of crumbly bodywork that needed remedying, I'd decided to wait until I'd sorted that out before bothering to get the chamois leather out. But this could also be interpreted as a lazy excuse. However, after my extensive work on her off side in autumn 2008, my temporary coat of grey primer applied to the restored areas didn't fare well during the following winter in which the car was taken to Spain and back over snowy mountains. So, the dilemna I faced now in the ensuing summer, was whether to spend the money required for the MOT and get her back on the road, then be prepared to commit many weeks of hard labour to dressing up all of her many rusty regions, in the knowledge that some areas (such as under the bonnet) were difficult to access and would remain untouched. What the car would really need is a thorough strip down, total body touch-up and a rebuild, for which I have neither the expertise nor the time. And after all of that, there may be further underlying mechanical issues to be attended to before she reaches her next MOT in 2010. The greatest shame is that the car had been such a proud servant clocking 6,000 miles across Europe in the previous year without once letting me down, and the chassis - perhaps unusually for remaining British models - was still reasonably sound. Ultimately, I had other options....

And so, enter this secret new stranger, seen in the photo above (left). From this distance, there's little one can differentiate between the two white Fours, but as I intend to reveal at a later date, the débutante suffers from none of the same sorry issues as her forebear (or should that be fourbear?)

Of course, I'm going to keep you in suspense and not reveal any further details about this new Snow White (which isn't its name, I'm not fully decided on that yet), suffice to say that it's a she, as always!

There was one final thing I wanted to capture from my time with Reflexia: this sticker on her rear windscreen that I assume had been there since she left the garage where she was sold back in 1984. It sums up so many of my sentiments about the car, although it might be more fitting with a minor amendment to state more specifically: 'There's more to life with a Renault 4'. All of these pictures were taken opposite Derek Flavell's Renospeed garage in Lewisham, south London.