My wife and I were looking for a fun small car to enjoy over the summer and we found this light blue Figaro at a local enthusiast dealership. It was fun while it lasted, but it was more trouble than it was worth, and it wasn’t fun enough to keep up with. I liked this car, but I never really liked it.
Nissan’s “Pike” cars are renowned among car enthusiasts for their incredibly executed vintage aesthetic. The quartet of post-modernist Nissan vehicles (all based on the Micra platform) included the S-Cargo, Pao, B-1 and Figaro. I chose the Figaro, the smaller two-seater (technically, there is a back seat, but it functionally doesn’t exist) for its sleeker looks, more powerful turbocharged and fuel-injected engine, and its folding roof.
Bought for $12,000 and sold at a slight loss 12 months later, it was a small and probably ill-advised move to end up with a car that didn’t really fit into my life the way I thought it would. I was looking for a reasonably frugal summer daily with some retro cues and cute dynamics. It met 90% of the criteria, but the driving experience fell well short of expectations. It also proved to be a total center-stage attention-grabber. I was getting more focus driving this thing than most powerful hypercars.
Don’t get me wrong, the car was very well worn and held up well over its 60,000 mile lifespan. But the Figaro was never designed with American roads in mind, and there was no sporting intent of any kind to support its little turbocharged runabout’s 2+2 vibes.
Everything You Need To Know
My two big takeaways from my year with the Nissan Figaro were that it’s aesthetically incredible and it has more storage than you’d think for a car of your size. Between the old rear seats, the clamshell that holds the vinyl roof in place when it’s down, and the actual “trunk” hidden just above the rear bumper, I could make a full drive to Costco with plenty of space in this car. You do lose a little bit of space with ceiling storage, but it’s usually worth it.
The top comes off fairly easily, but you have to get out of the car to remove it. Inside the car, you remove the top portion from the windshield header and press a button to release the rear clamshell. It’s easy to fold the top into its storage area, but it can be difficult to push it down enough to clip the retaining straps. Once it’s there and intact, you can close the clamshell and snap the small vinyl tonneau onto the rear bulkhead. It can certainly be done in under a minute, but on the spectrum of convertible top operating, it’s closer to the Porsche Boxster Spyder’s complicated top than the Mazda Miata’s ultra-quick-folding top.
The Figaros are all equipped identically, so the only difference between them is the colours, each named after a season. This grey/blue color is winter, while green is spring, turquoise is summer, and beige is autumn. If you see one in a different color, it’s custom made. Similarly, all interiors were ivory white with exterior color accents such as seat piping, carpet mats, dash cap and steering wheel horn button. All HVAC, radio, signal and door switches were covered in vintage-look backlight-style plastic and trimmed in chrome, which added a lot to the vintage feel.
not made for usa
At 6-foot-2 and weighing 300 pounds, I’m a large person even by American standards, but I still fit into the Figaro without any problems. Requires climbing very low and slipping under the large steering wheel with no airbag. Once inside, the seat was reasonably comfortable, if a little close to the dashboard. I found that I could drive this car for about an hour and a half at a time with no need to get out.
The Figaro is hardly a grand tourer, and it’s probably best to avoid highway-heavy routes altogether, if only for your safety inside this little tin box. After all, it is, first and foremost, a 35-year-old small city car. Safety measures are basically non-existent, as it runs on smaller tires and doesn’t feature anti-lock braking. There’s no sign of side curtain airbags or any rollover protection. I ride motorcycles regularly, so I can get over things like this, but not everyone can.
Nissan quotes a leisurely 0-60 time of 12.9 seconds for the Figaro, but decades later it feels even slower than that. I can forgive the slow acceleration of a funky car if it’s at least able to feel fun when the roads are winding. Unfortunately, Figaro didn’t deliver there either. The car felt like a small aluminum rowboat sailing through rough seas whenever I pushed it into revs. Small wheels with generous sidewalls meant the car had less traction than dress shoes in a snowstorm. Perhaps with some work, it could have been made manageable, but the stock suspension package rolled and rolled far more than the car’s 1800-ish pounds anticipated. All hindered by the ridiculous three-speed slushbox automatic.
What if it breaks?
Early in my Figaro ownership, I took the car to a local car show, but it came home on a flatbed. In Ohio, you can’t get anywhere without using the interstate, and while the Figaro can get to the speed limit, it’s actually revving its little turbocharged 1.0-liter engine at high rpm to do so. Theoretically, the car has a top speed of 106 mph, but I never had the courage to drive the true top speed. However, I was confident that if I swerved into the right-hand lane and kept my speed slightly below the limit, I would be fine. I was wrong.
Apparently, these MA10ET engines don’t like to hang out at high RPM because the bolts holding the rocker shaft to the cylinder head vibrate loose and the shaft bends in the middle until it breaks. This is a relatively common failure, but being a whole ocean away from the people who made it, I was unaware. Thankfully, this failure mode didn’t mean more destruction elsewhere, so I collected all the broken parts and changed the oil before considering my options.
With only 20,000 Figaros built, all of them for the Japanese market, the supply of parts in the US is basically non-existent. However, quite a few have been imported to the United Kingdom, and the Figaro shop there has a fair assortment of components. In a pinch, I probably could have welded the shaft back together and put on some new bolts, but the Figaro shop helped me. About this $300 and two weeks laterI had everything I needed to get the car running again. If you’re unwilling or unable to wait for foreign-sourced parts, the Figaro’s life is going to be tough – especially if something is more rare and/or expensive.
Why would you want that?
If you’ve ever wanted the opportunity to talk about your car, Figaro is going to make it convenient. At the gas station, in traffic, in the parking lot, you’ll be surrounded by curious people asking “What year is that?” Must be looking for an opportunity to ask questions like: This type of conversation was actually the thing that inspired us to get rid of the car.
On a late night drive into the city, a car stopped in the middle of the road in front of us, and the driver got out of his car to approach us and learn more about the Figaro. You may love attention, but for us, that (admittedly rare) situation was a little too complicated.
When it comes to cheap and cute, you can’t beat the Nissan Figaro. It’s such a beautiful car that you can buy it at any price, and if your driving needs are almost exclusively city affairs, you don’t mind driving very fast at any time, and you don’t mind everyone looking at you all the time, it might be perfect.
I think if I had made a few minor changes I would have been comfortable keeping the Figaro for many years to come. It’s possible that a set of nice coilovers, a better wheel and tire package, and a manual transmission swap would have made this an incredibly capable car. On the other hand, swapping the powertrain for an electric setup would make it a better city vehicle and highway drivable vehicle. Maybe one day I’ll have enough time and extra money to build such a wonderful Figaro. Until then, I’ve had my fun and moved on, and I’m fine with that.
