From The Independent, June 2000.
GUILT-FREE CONSUMER FUN FOR NODDY & VANESSA
The Japanese brought you the Nissan Figaro in the same spirit that they brought you Pokemon. Now all you have to do is go out and get one. By Linton Chiswick.The Independent, June 2000
A Japanese car with an Italian name, born out of an affection for the bygone days of British motoring – it doesn’t sound like the most trailblazing new car of the 1990’s.
Prepare to be confounded. For, long before Rover restored its tall and stately lines to the 75, or Jaguar added old-style eyes and haunches to its S-Type; before the chunky new Beetle got cute with its neo-hippy dashboard flowervase, and the Smart car crossed sensible with fun, Nissan had beaten them all to the punch.
So crowded is Japan that for a long time the length of your car was restricted unless you could prove you had access to off-road parking. Manufacturers went to great lengths to prove that good things can come in short packages, and "K-car" culture was born. All the major manufacturers continue to conjure up their own magic minis: Honda the "Beat", Mitsubishi the "Minica Dangan", Suzuki the "Cappuccino".
But Nissan’s Figaro is arguably the strangest Japanese sub-compact car to start appearing on British roads. Part of its appeal – for the moment, at least – is that so few people know what it is. Nissan badges are kept super-discreet; and the Figaro could, at a push, just about be a cherished original from the mid-Sixties. But it doesn’t sound like one. Cool precisely because it’s so difficult to place, the Figaro is on the brink of becoming the latest must-have media ornament – the automotive name on the lips of ad men and video directors.
The extraordinary true story is that, following the car’s acclaimed appearance at the 28th Tokyo Motor Show two years earlier, Nissan launched the Figaro in 1991, announcing a limited run of 20,000 cars and thus turning the daring, diminutive treasure into an immediate classic. There are about 126 million people in Japan, and the car was so oversubscribed from the start that Nissan resorted to an official raffle to help distribute the product fairly.
Just as the new Beetle is a Golf with curves, the Figaro is the flamboyant, transvestite younger brother of the Nissan Micra – sharing vital mechanicals, but distinguished by a penchant for dressing up as Judy Garland. And, like the sophisticated, computer-aided 75 or the S-Type, the Figaro’s retro chic is reassuringly bogus.
Slide onto the pale piped leather seats, lift the claw-shaped switch on the door, and the electric windows glide silently. Turn the white plastic one-piece steering wheel and the front tyres follow with nimble power assistance. Prod the accelerator and you climb through the 3-speed automatic gearbox with the help of a turbo-charged 1,000 c.c. engine.
But you have to admire the details: the over-sized mother-of-pearl horn, the unsophisticated chrome grill hiding sophisticated climate control, the (optional) CD player disguised as an old wireless. Sixties cars (on Sixties suspension) rarely sat on their wheels so gracefully; nor come into the lovely, muted but high reflective colours that make the Figaro so distinctive.
One of a growing number of British bespoke importers of Japanese cars to take advantage of the country’s lower mileage, higher quality second-hand car market, chartered accountant Shabir Mamdani is a Figaro enthusiast who first imported one (for his wife) in 1993. Figaro Cars – a company he runs from the Wembley offices of accountants, Adams Moorhouse – source and import low-mileage examples, along with other rare and exotic machines from the Land of the Rising Sun. He has watched as the Figaro has captured the imagination of the media and entertainment world, and celebrities as diverse as Jonathan Ross, Vanessa Feltz and Eric Clapton have all been seen coveting these little two-tone Noddy cars.
"After I brought in my wife’s," he explains, "everyone asked, "Can you get me one? Can you get me one? So ..".
He keeps about ten in stock – the highest mileage car he has imported had 33,000 kilometres on the clock, the lowest 10,000 – and buys the cars via an agent resident in Japan. All cars come with a year’s warranty, and he gives buyers the option of changing the dials from kilometres to miles. Because of the cars’ collectability, some prefer to keep everything original. He says he has little trouble sourcing low mileage examples (Japan has superb public transport facilities; cars tend to be used for fun, and are plentiful so second hand prices stay low). An the Japanese drive on the left, so British buyers needn’t worry about costly steering conversions. Twelve thousand pounds will buy a good, low mileage example; and prices are likely only to rise.
Ultimately, the Figaro says more about Japanese culture than it does about British or Italian motoring. It’s an emblem of a country where consumer culture has evolved beyond a need to make the simply desirable also seem necessary. After all, it was guilt-free consumer fun that brought us the entirely useless Tamagotchi, Pokemon and those tiny photo booths that dispense heart-shaped stickers.
Although the Nissan Figaro doesn’t offer much room to passengers or luggage, this reliable, nimble little town car is far from useless – though it’s the only car on British roads that wouldn’t look out of place on a keyring.
Figaro Cars: www.figarocars.co.uk/020 8901 2869