What Emma Parker Bowles Has To Say

From Tatler Magazine

The cute little Fifties-style Nissan Figaro knocks the bobbysocks off Emma Parker Bowles.

The Figaro charmed me. It is extremely cute, in an Italian-waiter sort of way. So, too, is the interior, all cream leather and chrome. Indeed, there is an abundance of quality chrome everywhere, from the slimline bumpers to the external boot hinges, and from the hub-caps to the Victorian-cutlery-style toggle switches. It even has a chrome stick thing on the bonnet to help you line up when you are parking. The radio is appropriate retro, even though it conceals an anachronistic CD-player. And if the sun shines, you can roll back the canvas roof manually.

The Figaro's engine is based on the Nissan Micra’s, but that’s where the likeness ends. Although the automatic 1-litre turbo-charged engine is nothing to get excited about, it means the Figaro is perfectly nippy and reliable in the city. It may dislike hill-starts and feel a bit like driving a Dodgem car, but a Figarist (someone who drives a Figaro, apparently) is in it for the fun and the attention, not the torque. Driving one is like sitting in Ed’s Diner or being trapped in a cartoon. When I discovered that luminaries such as Vanessa Feltz and Jonathan Ross, were Figarists, I understood perfectly.

Only 20,000 Figaros were made, in 1991, for the Japanese market. It is easy to imagine those retro fanatics working themselves into a frenzy over such an authentic-looking Fifties motor. Perfect for kitsch culs-de-sac in the country.