A few days on from the last entry in July 2004, and a further set of pics from Portugal arrives. I've noticed that there are more white models in the country than any other colour, in part as a reflective shield against the sun. These photos come with the message:
'Hi there, I've noticed that you have some portuguese R4L fan friends. Well, I'm from Portugal too, my name is Carlos Paulo and I'm from a small village about 30 minutes from Lisbon and curiously, it's near Santarém wich you have lots of photos of in your site, but I was never aware of the event. My father and I we own five R4s. I drive my 1980 baby, and my mom drives her 1990 savane. Two different generations of people and R4. Our other 3 renaults are stopped in the garage, one is being totally restored, the other is waiting to become a cabrio (both L4V models 1980) and the last one.. well we've found her in a very bad shape under a tree, it's a Savane from 1991, and we bought it with 40 euros (it's about 25 pounds I think)!!! She's waiting restoration also.'
Carlos continues:
'Unfortunately R4 is here often used as a work/battle car that will do whatever you want and go wherever you'll take her. Besides that, it's a very popular vehicle, specially to the ones in my age. In my university there are at least 6 students and 2 teachers with R4s and all of them are really nice looking and we're thinking in doing a R4 school club to do some miles over the country. (I'm now realising that there's only one orange and a blue one with flowers. You're right! the others are white...)'
'Today I went to a beach city near by called Nazaré and I spotted like 5 of them, 2 whites and a blue one in a really really bad shape, a fresh painted red one, and a good looking yellow 'Plein-air' from the 70s doing a sporty noise :) that passed me and unfortunately I couldn't take her a picture. Yes it's also true that almost all of them here are white... or yellow! which becomes a bit boring indeed, but I like all of them anyway, I just hate some of the owners.. Here's photos from my 1980 r4 and my mom's 1990 savane (ok they're white too! lack of imagination perhaps).'
Four days after I received this email, I purchased my own third Renault 4 (a white one), named Reflexia, pictures of which can be found on My Pics page 3 of this Gallery section.