Today I want to share my obsession with the Nissan Figaro with you. This adorable car looks like it comes straight out of a cartoon, and I’ve been spotting examples of it all over London lately.
Cars
I’ve never been much of a car person. My first vehicle was a hand-me-down grey-and-white 1992 Dodge Caravan.
My older brother had wired bull horns to the grill, plastered the back with Libertarian bumper stickers, and accidentally driven over a can of pink spray paint that left a giant stripe across the lower left panel.
Needless to say, I didn’t cry when the car died about four months after I got my driver’s license.
My second car was my mother’s old 1996 Ford Contour, which wasn’t much of an improvement. It was reliable, but utterly boring. Even the color, beige, was boring.
When I started working at Goldman Sachs after college, I thought about upgrading to something I liked better.
Mini Coopers were great, both for their cuteness and for the fact that they were the only cars that would fit in the pint-sized parking spaces in my San Francisco neighborhood.
But alas, I felt guilty buying a new car when my old one was still in proper working order.
Nissan Figaro
Then I moved to London. With its high congestion charge, its utter lack of parking spaces, and its ridiculous traffic, London didn’t lend itself to driving.
Oh, and there was that whole other-side-of-the-road thing, too. For someone that doesn’t know her right from her left (not for lack of trying…I think it’s genetic), that was a bit scary.
But one day I saw my dream car. I was walking up Heath Street in Hampstead when a tiny convertible caught my eye. It was the cutest car I had ever seen.
The next day I saw another one. This time I stopped to look at the hood. FIGARO. I had never heard of it.
A quick Google search revealed that it was a Nissan Figaro, a rare car that was introduced by the company in 1989. It came in four colors: Topaz Mist, Emerald Green, Pale Aqua, and Lapis Gray. Each one represented a season of the year.
Only 20,000 were made, and the Nissan Figaro was sold exclusively in Japan. But since then a few of them have made their way to the UK.
Well, more than a few. It seems I can hardly go anywhere in London these days without spotting a Nissan Figaro. Or three.
Nissan Figaro in London
Once my obsession with the Nissan Figaro began, I started to see my beloved Figaro everywhere. There were purple ones, black ones, orange ones, and even hot pink ones.
I saw them in London, in Norfolk, and even in Vancouver! Maybe I was a car person after all. I just hadn’t ever met the right car.
When I moved into my new flat a few months ago, I saw that it came with a parking space. Was it a sign?
I haven’t decided yet, but oil prices are falling and Christmas is just around the corner. I might just have to buy myself a Nissan Figaro as a gift…
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