Figaro may be the cutest car in world
Pint-sized Nissan droptop with 1.0L four is just crazy, colourful fun
If entrepreneur Randy Lum ever wants to get out of the restaurant business, he could always get a job herding cats. It’s 15 minutes past go-time for the eighth annual Canada Day parade of Figaros, and Lum is everywhere at once, a meerkat in a red-and-white Yankees baseball hat, stuffing revellers into his tiny cars.
Everybody’s in a party mood — though each toylike Japan-only import has a sober designated driver at the wheel — and there’s a certain tendency for folks to whoop and holler and then wander off. With much flapping of arms and the help of friends, Lum gets his crew more or less strapped in and ready to go.
“OK, everybody ready?” Fingers are poised over stereos, tunes locked and loaded. “In three ... two ... one ... Go!” All seven quirky Nissans burst to life with the thumping bass of a summertime anthem. Cutesy little horns are tooted. The lead car — a first-generation Mazda Miata with a maple leaf plastered on its rear trunk — takes up position and the rainbow-coloured conga line heads off down the street.
From the rear, the best reactions are those from bystanders. This isn’t a sanctioned parade route, with blocked-off streets and barricades. This is what the Care Bears would do if they were a street gang into drive-bys. People stop and stare. They wave. They grin. Other drivers honk and cheer. A guy on a bike rolls past the other way and gives the driver of the pink Sambar van a high-five.
The sun beams down and the music pulses, a guerrilla glee club dancing away in tiny convertibles and exhorting others to join in the noise. “Honk your horns!” A man with a red maple leaf temporary tattoo on his bicep flexes. A couple of little kids start jumping up and down. An older woman shakes her head good-naturedly. It is, in short, a complete gong show. On wheels.
Remember the Economist writer who claimed Vancouver was “mind-numbingly boring ”? Maybe next time he should actually try to visit. If he did, I’d certainly recommend he visit The Eatery, a little sushi joint in Kitsilano that’s been doing things a little differently for more than 30 years.
Sushi restaurants in Vancouver are as commonplace as Toyota Corollas, and mostly about as interesting. They all make the same stuff: Dragon Roll. California Roll. Salmon Sashimi. Bento Box with Tempura Yam. (Hmmm, maybe you’ve got a point there, anonymous Economist writer.)
However, at the Eatery, you can eat deep-fried avocado tempura with mayonnaise (dubbed the Fat Elvis) while above you a papiermâché Aquaman battles a giant octopus made out of plastic toys. It’s hardly my place to extend automotive writing to cover restaurant reviewing, but that’s some darn good eatin’.
You might expect the proprietor of such an unusual place to have an unusual way of getting to work, and you’d be right. The de rigueur transportation of the Vancouver entrepreneur is a Porsche, or now more commonly a Tesla. Lum has five Nissan Figaros, a Pao he gave to his bartender, that pink Subaru Sambar van, and a convertible Nash Metropolitan.
The Nissan Figaro is a very interesting machine and worth a little further discussion. Just as the Eatery’s off-the-wall decor and quirky menu is part of its appeal, the little Figaro is a car that is small in power output and cargo capacity, but huge on charm.
In the mid-1980s, Nissan had something of an image problem. Anyone who remembers their products (probably not many, not with how boring they mostly were) will mostly recall boxy, uninspired designs. The trucks were a bit interesting, but the cars didn’t have a lot of youth appeal.
So, while buttoned-down Canadians loved the early Micra, Japanese youngsters shrugged their shoulders at Nissan’s offerings, and wandered over to Toyopet or Autozam for the cool stuff. Nissan needed a little inspiration, and they found it in designer Naoki Sakai.
Sakai came up with the Be-1, a sort of Japanese Mini Cooper. One of three vehicles Nissan revealed at the 1987 Tokyo Motor Show, it had the practicality of the Micra with a little retro charm. People went nuts for it; they easily sold 10,000 of the little cars in a flash.
The cars were built at Aichi Machine Industry, which Nissan would later refer to as their “Pike Factory.” The place was essentially a giant gumball machine churning out weirdness, everything from the corrugated-looking Pao to the SCargo van, a snail-themed tribute to the Citroën 2CV.
A total of 20,000 Figaros were produced in 1991, and while the cost was low, you had to win the lottery to be able to buy one. Nissan had far more orders than they cared to fill, so they put the orders into a bin (so to speak) and raffled them off.
Power is provided by a 1.0-litre engine making 75 horsepower and 78 pound-feet of torque, and the only transmission is a three-speed automatic. Hardly the sort of stuff to set your pants on fire, but even today, noted Ferrari collector Eric Clapton still has one.
Watching this bag-of-Skittles Canada Day parade inching by at the speed of a child’s pull toy, it’s easy to see why. The Figaro is just plain fun. It’s so small that the right-hand-drive configuration isn’t an issue for visibility; it’s peppy and colourful, and the roof comes down. Add in decent reliability and what more could you ask for?
Well, perhaps a trio of attractive, festive road companions to share the trip with. The Figaro parade continues on down into Gastown and there, I’m told by one of Randy’s longtime friends, things start to get really crazy. Craziness and wee colourful Japanese convertibles?
That’s a perfect marriage of Figaro.