The car that should have failed BUT sold 8 MILLION! RENAULT 4 GTL

The Renault 4 was built in over 20 countries, over 8 million were sold. It was a farmer's friend, a student's dream. It was a postal van, it was a police car, it was even a makeshift camper. Today it's agonisingly slow, it's wobbly, it's noisy and has all the luxuries of a garden shed. There is also an intrinsic design problem, which you would think would have guaranteed its failure. And yet, this is one of the most significant cars that I've had on the channel yet. Let me tell you why. It may be a modest car, but it's one that occupies a huge place in automotive history. Now whereas the 2CV was a wobbly tin snail, this was, well, a wobbly box on wheels. But a charming one with a couple of big surprises. And it went through 33 years of production with only very marginal changes to the body. The story starts in 1961 when Renault wanted to build a competitor for the 2CV, but which they wanted to be more practical and modern. The Citroen had been a huge success, but it had been launched in 1948. By 1960, with France rapidly urbanising, some of its flaws were becoming harder to accept. It was incredibly slow. The suspension was very complicated and needed lubrication every thousand miles. And it lacked interior room in comparison to its overall footprint. The 4 was better in every way, except for one very odd technical choice, which we'll come to in a moment. Engines were a water-cooled four-cylinder rather than an air-cooled two. This made them more powerful and more refined. Sizes went from 603 to 1,108cc, and the power between 23 and 34 horses. A top speed of 65mph compared well with the 2CV's lowly 43. And the torsion bar suspension all round was maintenance-free. But this is where we come to the most shocking aspect of this design. Now, it's well known that for a car to drive properly, the chassis has to be symmetrical. And yet, on the 4, the wheelbase is longer on one side than on the other. Yep, that's right. Because the two rear torsion bars were placed one in front of the other, the wheelbase on this side of the car is shorter than on the other. It was the world's first mass-produced hatchback and, with the seats down, it's absolutely cavernous. So big that my friend Ian, who used to have a small holding in Wales, says that he used to be able to get 14 hay bales in this thing between the interior and then onto the roof. One area where it lacked compared to the 2CV is that initially it only came with a three-speed gearbox. And that's bizarre, because it was purposefully designed for this car. The chassis is best described as a semi-monocoque with the body on top of it. This is very similar to today's electric car skateboard platforms. It allowed for very easy variations of the body. So you had things like the planer and the legendary four-gonette van. They were built in over 20 countries, including Mexico, Croatia, Slovenia, Portugal, and even for four years in Heidelberg in Australia. But perhaps most surprising of all is that none other than Alfa Romeo built them under licence in its own factory in Milan in the 60s. There was even a Sinpar 4x4 version that competed in the Paris-Dakar in 1979 and 1980. This one is a late 1988 GTL model and, by late, I mean it had the audacity to still be on sale in a world where we had a Porsche 959 and a Ferrari F40. And yet, there it was, proudly offering 34 horsepower and no design updates since ABBA broke up. Let's take a look inside. Everything's very simple in here, but there's a couple of interesting details. Now, this very, very Spartan display has some numbers as well as the kilometres an hour. This is a French car. So on it, there is a suggested gear. I think that's where you change up on each of the little faces. Also, I love the sliding windows. I mean, this is so simple. You just pull this little catch and then you open the window. So quick, easy, effortless. The door handles, unusually, are in the door itself. You just squeeze that, pull it shut. There's a button on the floor. That's to control full and dipped beam, which is a real relic of the past. And of course, how could you not notice the gear stick popping out of the dash? Well, there's two very good reasons for this. The first one is that it frees up a lot of extra room in the cabin. And they had to do it this way because, very unusually, the gearbox is mounted right in front of the engine. I think this goes back to the original cars which took engines from rear-drive Renaults for which they just spun them round and put them in place like this. Now this is, I think, this must be one of the best Renault 4s in the world. As I said, it's a 1988, so quite a late model car. And it is in incredible condition. It's showing 120,000 kilometres, so I think that's 90,000 miles. And it just looks exceptional. Apart from the bonnet, all the paint is original. So the reason why it's such a good one is that it was always kept undercover in the south of France, therefore no rust issues. And the guy who had it originally was really fastidious. So Nick, who owns it, found out, he's got loads of paperwork, he found out that every year, whether they needed it or not, he replaced the shocks all round. And you could see, you know, even earlier from the condition of the engine and everything, this is absolutely mint. I feel really privileged to be able to drive it today. I've been really careful with it because I think it's pretty much irreplaceable. Driving impressions are, they're mixed really. The steering has incredible vagueness off centre. There's just no precision there whatsoever. But then it loads up and gives you a little bit of feel which is unexpected and really welcome. Driving position is fine. You're pretty upright. The suspension is super soft. So the car's moving around all the time. But at 720 kilos, I think these weighed, the 34 horsepower that you get from the inline four isn't as bad as you think. It's quite a rough unit and at the front there you have the sort of change up spots on the speedo. But I really wouldn't want to go that far today. I think that changing up at 80 kilometres an hour and a third would be really ragging this old girl. I think it would do it. The engine feels in fine fettle. But still, this column mounted gear change is lovely. It feels pretty nice. There's not much slop in there. And because you're going almost straight to the gearbox, it's got a nice mechanical feel to it too. It's a bit high up initially, but you kind of get used to that. I'm not going to take it through the gears in quite the normal way that I do because it's just not a quick thing. But anyway, let's just see how it goes down the road. And we're at an indicated 60 miles an hour. I don't think it's actually as high as that. I think it's off by maybe five miles an hour. But still, it's sort of respectable. You could just about keep up with modern traffic without having to worry too much. Indeed, I've actually caught up with the traffic on this road. Although you do get some people who are just so slow. A bit frustrating at times. Now, you can probably hear the immense amount of rattling and moving around that's in here. But the worst of it actually seems to come from those rear seatbelts. The way that they're just loose on the bolts that sort of tack them in. If there were some O-rings either side, that would really put paid to a lot of that. Apart from that, you know, it feels fairly fragile. All the plastics are pretty brittle, pretty rough. But that's part of the charm. And with this one is also a special edition because it's called the Clan. And the reason for that, I think, is that the upholstery is... I wouldn't go so far as to call it Scottish, but it's Scottish-inspired, I think. It's, I don't know, a French vision of what a tartan cloth might look like. A super basic version called the Three was also there for a couple of years from launch. That had things like solid rear panels, so no windows in those. Even less equipment than this. And the very base spec engine. But it didn't last very long. Although they made it more refined than the 2CV, they never lost sight of the fact that there was still a market for owners of sort of small holdings. So small farms, things of that kind. So the suspension was designed and made in such a way that you could quickly take it to your mechanic. He could undo a couple of bolts and raise the height. So if you had a farm, you needed to use it a lot on sort of rougher roads, that height could be changed very easily. It is soft, it is wallowy, but actually it handles better than you think. On the way back, I'll push it through the tighter corners a little bit harder and we'll see how it fares. Turning circle, as you would expect, is absolutely astonishing. A little bit heavier at low speeds, but... If we talk about a power band, well, it does have one, surprisingly. And revving it does bring the best out of it. I'm not sure what revs it's doing. And as I say, I'm not going to rev it up to all the suggested shift points, but all the same, it's an engine that does produce more power higher up. So here we go. I'm going to do these in third, I think. You could go down to second, but I just don't want to push this little car too hard. Go in, feels like it's going to fall over. It really does at the front end. And then from here on in, keep your foot pinned to the floor and it just flows through. Lovely, really nice. I mean, I think what's surprising is there is a huge amount of grip. Now, you're slightly discouraged from using it because it can be a little bit alarming when it starts tipping into the corner. So sometimes you don't go in as fast as you actually could because eventually it does stop leaning. It doesn't fall over as you think it might. I've had people approach me today in this, more than supercars, more than anything else. All of them said I used to have one of those and they love to reminisce about when they had them, you know, years ago, 20 years ago, 30 years ago, more than any other car. People have approached me with this and it's just been nice to see their reactions. It's a poor reflection of how badly we're doing in the UK that I've started to compliment cars on how they deal with potholes. That is the case. These roads are pretty bad and this just deals with all the kind of rough, the imperfections so well. To me, it feels like a much more usable version of a 2CV with a level of charm all of its own. I absolutely love it and yes, okay, it's soft, it's wallowy, it's not very refined and yet it's another one of those cars that I've driven recently that although objectively, if you look at everything nowadays, it's not that good. It's still immense fun to drive. Huge thanks to Nick for bringing it down and thanks to all of you for watching.