Something which is - for me - an astonishing sight, is that of Renault 4s still being sold on the forecourts of Renault garages. In the UK, the typical Renault garage is embarrassed at the sight of my vehicle making its way into their environs as they try to show off their latest snazzy models to prospective buyers. However, in some parts of the world, including here in rural France, such wonders are still possible, even at the end of 2008. I forget exactly where this garage was located, since it was rather in the middle of nowhere, but I believe it may have been near the village of Cauneille, on the N117 east of Bayonne. I made a sudden stop and U-turn on the road to glance over in disbelief, just as a man I assume to be the garage owner was leaving in his Kangoo for the lunch hour. He seemed equally bemused to spot my right-hand drive R4 outside his garage so far down in the south of the country.

I parked in the garage which was closed during the break, and examined the twin white opportunities in more detail. The one on the left was a 1982 TL in rather poor condition. It certainly didn't look like it would give anything more than another year or two of life and probable grief, before rotting away. The price tag was 500 Euros. Meanwhile, the one on the right was a 1992 Savane TL model, one of the last produced, and commanded an exotic fee of 2,800 Euros (knocked down from 3,000 I believe). However, I wouldn't have described its general condition inside and out as startling, and it had done 151,000km. For such a high price, I wasn't tempted to swap, although I'd have loved to have seen the garage owner's face on his return had I managed to put my own rusty Reflexia in position.

So, anybody in the south-west corner of France might want to keep a check on this place in future. In fact, during my travels around the country I passed Renault garages in practically every small town and village, a few others of which had one or two R4s lurking around on the forecourts, including some vans. The number I saw in total during my trip ran into several dozen, hence I lost the will to take pictures of them all, but it was reassuring to know that they still populate the roads in such quantities. For more about the R4 road trip made in December 2008, click here.