Work progresses across all areas of the site to reformat and tidy up little pieces here and there. You may notice this page has also undergone some transformation, now branded as the 'news and updates' page rather than the 'history' moniker of before, which was perhaps confusing. It even has its own little icon and an easier colour scheme than the hippy trippy visuals of the past. In conjunction with the improved home page scroller, I hope it will now be easier to keep up to date with both the changes around this site, and also any other items of R4 news that come to my attention. In the last and final Vote 4 It! poll, it was a tie between kids giggling or kids making faces and pointing, as to which reaction you most commonly observed in the street towards your Renault 4. I have closed the polling feature for now as it was lurking in an obscure recess of the site and not commanding very much attention, besides which it relies upon an external service that may not be around forever, although you can still view all the previous votes and their results. There will likely be a new form of poll functionality on the site at a future date.

J'ai travaillé sur tous les domaines du site web pendant ces dernières semaines, en améliorant beaucoup de petits points. En particulière, les sections 'Star Story' et 'Your Articles' ont été transformés avec des nouveaux formats et de couleurs, pour être plus facile à lire. Cette page a été modifiée aussi et maintenant elle contient les nouvelles à la fois le site et la 4L en générale, afin qu'il soit plus simple de garder une trace des développements récents. Une chose que la version française du site a manqué jusqu'à maintenant est un téléscripteur de nouvelles pour la page d'accueil. Ainsi j'en ai ajouté pour fournir une parité avec la page anglaise.
Des choses étranges que l'on ne savait jamais sur Renault 4-Play - partie 2: 'Pour l'amour de la 4L'
- Pour continuer cette série de circonstance en français, je devrais expliquer (après presque dix ans) que le titre de ce site a du sens seulement en anglais, et que '4play' ('foreplay') se traduit par 'les préliminaires'! Ce n'est pas logique peut-être, mais en anglais il marche, je vous le promets!

After some weeks of relentless work, I've now completely remodelled the Star Story and Your Articles pages with new layouts, new colours and a few revised articles. It all looks a lot tidier and is easier on the eye, which I hope will make it all more attractive to persons trying to read and absorb the longer items.
Stange things you never knew about Renault 4-Play - part 1: 'An All-Star Cast'
- In taking a look at the new Star Story section, and in particular its new logo, you might be surprised to learn where those stars actually come from. Back in the early days of this site's creation, I needed a star shape to use for the original Star Story logo and the Star Car page background. Having an unreliable and expensive pay-as-you-go dial-up connection to the net, I instead searched for sources of inspiration closer to home. On my feet, to be precise. My Converse All-Star trainers contained the only stars I could find around me, so I scanned one of my shoes to make a template. And here, almost a decade on, I'm still using that template for designing new star-themed objects on the website. You see, you learn something new every day. You also learn something completely unnecessary every day.

Having kept readers in suspense for the last month, I now fully reveal my fourth Renault 4 to the world. See entry MP46 on the My Pics page for a full write-up. I've been working hard on this site over the last weeks in cleaning up a lot of the cruft that has generated over the years. Most visible changes are fairly minor and are aimed at better page display on different screen resolutions, but I'm tidying up various pages and have removed a few of the most outmoded. The old marquee scroller on the home page, present since the birth of the site, has finally gone, to be replaced by a less visually intrusive alternative. There's much more that could be done and these measures are only a stopgap until I can tackle a larger scale overhaul. Meanwhile, in addition to more of my ranting in the brown section, the yellow pages will lead you to the latest wall calendar on offer in the Boutique. Twelve photographic delights for 2010.

Je dévoile ma quatrième Renault 4 - et son origine française - au monde. Voir l'entrée MP46 sur la page 'My Pics'. De plus, les pages jaunes vous amèneront au dernier calendrier mural, en vente à la Boutique. Douze plaisirs photographiques pour 2010.

Following my earlier quandary regarding my own Renault 4, I have now made a decision and sadly parted company with the car. It may still be possible for somebody - with time and effort to spare - to save her from peril in her silver jubilee, and keep this deserving 25-year-old servant on the road. The classified ads page contains further details. Unsurprisingly, this does not mean the end of my R4 ownership. Entry number MP45 in the My Pics section reveals some first glimpses of my new pride and joy, the fourth in my car-owning history.

Just a quickie to say more new photos added to the People's Pics and the babies@play sections. My own Reflexia just completed her return journey from Lyon back to England without incident, save for the temperature light occasionally illuminating when running at speed on the autoroute for a while. Switching on the fan and slowing down to around 55mph tends to resolve the problem, but I'll have to investigate what's going on. The MOT is also due now (one of the reasons for my returning) and I shall need to make a longer term decision on the car's fate, given its likely prolonged stays away from home when I return to France in the near future. I either keep it as a novelty right-hand drive edition in a foreign land, which means making some effort this summer to touch up the rust and possibly battling various bureaucratic obstacles thrown my way by the DVLA and their Gallic equivalents, or I consider getting a LHD model instead, forgoing all the strange looks and extra attention that the French currently afford me with my GB plates. Not an easy one.

I made it to the 1st 4L International event at Thenay in France. A review complete with photos has been added to the Star Story page in the Articles section.

Je suis allé à l'événement du 1er 4L International à Thenay, France. Un compte-rendu (en anglais seulement mais avec des photos) a été ajouté à la page 'Star Story' dans la section d'Articles.

I've taken my R4 over to France once again, and have been living in Lyon since the start of the month. Another Renault 4 road story has been duly added to the My Pics page of the Gallery (number MP43). There's a few more Fours dotted around the city streets here, including a couple for sale and even one red 'Sixties' special edition, perhaps the first I've seen with my own eyes. Whilst I couldn't make it to this year's Kent run, since I left for France just one day earlier, I am hoping to trek west from here and be at the inaugural 4L International in three weeks from now. Check out the organisers' blog for latest updates. I've had various problems accessing the Internet since arriving in France but the site has still been updated when I've had a chance. Meanwhile, I've acquired some new French reading material, in the form of a book I ordered from a Lyonnais bookshop, entitled La Renault 4 de mon père, by Marie-Claire Lauvray and Dominique Pascal. I first saw it on a shelf in Rouen last year but was reluctant to pay the cover price of €27, though the shop owner assured me it was the only R4 book available. The ISBN number is 978-2-7268-8193-4 in case you're interested, but I cannot yet provide any further opinion on its content, since knowing me it'll be about another fourteen years before I get around to reading it.

BIG NEWS! Two dates for your diary this spring: The 'First 4L International' meeting is planned for the weekend 20-21 June at Thenay (near Blois) in France. This event is being organized in conjunction with the 4L Magazine. In addition, some more info has reached me concerning the UK Kent run next month. Organiser Derek Flavell writes: 'This year's run will be taking place on Sunday 3rd May 2009. The starting point is the same as the year before last; the M2 services between junctions 4 and 5 on the eastbound carriageway. The start will be at 11 o'clock, so arrive early if you want to get breakfast, mingle or chat. We will have a gentle drive through Kent ending up at Squerryes Court in Westerham, where you can get light refreshments or a restaurant meal. There is a lot to see in the fine old house and superb gardens. Entrance fee is: House and Gardens £7 per adult, Seniors £6, Garden only is £4.50 per adult, Seniors £4. All classic Renault models are welcome. Further info: email info@renospeed.co.uk. House details at: www.squerryes.co.uk'

The Renault 4 is still to be found all over France, even turning up unexpectedly on the front of unrelated magazines, such as the February 2009 edition of 'Studyramag' - a pocket guide for French students (see cover image, right). This edition features an article about the 4L Trophy.

GRANDES NOUVELLES! Le rassemblement de 'Premier 4L International' est organisé le weekend 20-21 juin à Thenay (près de Blois, 41). Cet événement est arrangé conjointement avec le 4L Magazine. La Renault 4 est encore trouvée partout en France, même sur les couvertures de magazines sans rapport, tel que l'édition de 'Studyramag' du fevrier 2009 (voir l'image à droite). Cette édition contient un article au sujet du 4L Trophy.

You wait three years for a baby to come along, and then two come at once! Well, that's nothing to do with my private life but rather related to this site's baby section, for which another photo has just been submitted only days after the previous entrant. Since I like to give each a spot of stardom, I'll delay adding the latest one for a little longer, so look out for an update there in March. From now until then I shall be making another trip over to France, though this time without the 4. Just before leaving, however, I was pleased to do a bit of local Fourspotting after a tip-off from a friend. I'd been advised that a brown Renault 4 with a foreign, black number plate had been seen off the London Road in my home town of Brighton, so I drove down there this last day of February and there it was, though it could hardly be described as brown. A rather old beige model with chrome bumpers was sitting on somebody's drive, with a prang on one front corner. The usual calling card was left on their windscreen and I shall submit a poor quality photo from my mobile phone if the owner doesn't contact me first. And another item to mention before I disappear for the coming fortnight - that is the announcement of the next annual Renault 4 gathering in the UK, due to take place on May 3rd 2009. Note that this is the first bank holiday Sunday in May, as opposed to the later one when this event usually takes place. Contact Derek at Renospeed for further details (see the R4 links page). The assumption is that as with previous years, the run will start and continue somewhere around Kent and the south-east, but I'll provide more details if I get any later on.

After a gap of three and a half years, the babies@play page in the Playroom finally receives a new entry. Quite a few other sets of pictures have been arriving in these first few weeks of 2009, some of which have been added and a few more which are waiting to be shown. It's an encouraging sign following the downward trend of recent years, in which enthusiasm for the Four has seemingly waned as ownership decreases and more of the cars disappear forever. We may be reaching a turning point, due to the car now becoming scarce in the majority of countries worldwide, forcing its true fans to make more effort in preserving those that remain. So keep sending your pictures in, and let's see if we can make this year one of the best ever for showcasing the R4. One other update was made recently when I overhauled the Links section. They were in dire need of verification after years of going unchecked, and it's no surprise to find that quite a few of the smaller sites have since vanished. The pages should now contain fewer dead links, and the odd one or two new ones.