What was the Nissan Figaro?

In the late Eighties, Japan was booming, and the Japanese had money to spend. Nissan was doing a nice little sideline in retro-styled ‘boutique’ automobiles based on mainstream Nissan running gear and platforms. Designs like the Be-1 and Pao appeared, possibly alluding to 1960s Austins, Renaults and Hondas, followed by a curious snail-like vehicle mimicking the Citroen 2CV Fourgonette (van) and called the ‘S-Cargo’. (See what they did there?) They were all made in limited numbers, allocated by lottery and when they were gone, they were gone. We saw them in the motoring press but never on the roads. They came to be collectively known as the 'pike' cars.




[Wikipedia]

And then there was the Figaro. It was made in 1991 - for one year only. Nissan initially planned for 8,000 cars, but this was expanded to 20,000 because demand was so huge.




These little cars have been around in fair numbers in Britain over the last twenty-plus years. A few came over when they were new, purchased by enthusiasts and celebrities (Eric Clapton being an early purchaser) but most stayed in Japan. Then, with Japanese regulations making it uneconomic to keep cars beyond a fairly young age by Western standards, the Figaros started being sold secondhand in the UK. An industry sprang up importing and servicing them. They were never a regular pricelisted import, but they were still an occasional sight - still are - because the number imported ran into the thousands. There are still over 2,000 on the road here.



The Figaro was a two door fabric-roofed car with ‘two-plus-two’ seating, which means: Don’t try travelling in the back. Its style was resolutely Fifties, but underpinnings were basically contemporary Nissan March/Micra. It came in four colour schemes, representing the seasons. It had a turbocharged OHC engine of 1.0 litre displacement developing 55kW/75bhp and mated to a three-speed automatic transmission. Interior appointments were quite lavish; leather seats, power-operated windows, an audio system which included CD and cassette, with the convertible roof, complete with heated glass window, stowing neatly out of sight under the rear deck. The spare wheel was stowed behind a cover above the rear bumper, Standard 8-style. But that was pretty much all it had in common with the small Standard.

i did a bit more digging and found a couple of cars which may well have served as inspiration for the Figaro. One was a German runabout called the Gutbrod Superior, produced for four years from 1950-54. It has a lot of similarity visually with the Figaro, right down to the 'fixed profile convertible' concept and the fabric roof. Here it is...


[Wikipedia]

There was another vehicle which came a little later and which undoubtedly also acted as a design cue, especially around the front - the once-ubiquitous Hillman Minx. These were an important car for Rootes Group and were even produced in Japan for a decade or so. So they would have been a familar sight to the designers of the Figaro. (This is an 'Audax' Minx, made from 1956 onwards). It's pretty obvious what they did here!


[Wikipedia]

So there you have it, a Japanese 'retro' car, but one of European inspiration. And even partly American, when you count the fact that Rootes, makers of the Hillman Minx, had a working arrangement with Raymond Loewy, who also did Studebakers. But that's a whole other story...