There is an unusual amount of Nissan Figaros driving in my home country the Netherlands. An even more unusual amount of Nissan Figaros is driving in my hometown. Why is that? That’s because the Nissan Figaro has a Celebrity status in the Netherlands!
Pikes cars: the Figaro
The Nissan Figaro started out as one of the Nissan Pikes cars. It is a retro-inspired car and the last and final of the Be-1, Pao, S-Cargo and Figaro quartet based on the March K10 platform. I know the Rasheen is missing, but I simply discard it for simplicity. With around 30,000 Figaros built, it’s hardly a rare car to come by in Japan. Especially with its retro styling, it will stand out against the crowd.
1950s retro-styling
The styling of the Figaro is inspired by various 1950s cars, to be more precise: the Autobianchi Bianchina Trasformabile. If you squint your eyes, you can see the unique half-open top of the Bianchina has the exact same shape as the Figaro. A few years ago I was convinced Lucie’s car in the second Dispicable Me movie is also a Bianchina, but Jason Torchinsky proved me wrong. The car in the movie is a Vespa 400 that looks like a downsized micro-car version of the Bianchina. Unfortunately, you can’t edit videos on YouTube, so you will have to do with my written statement here that I’m wrong in the video below.
Gaining celebrity status
How did the Figaro become a celebrity car in the Netherlands? Well, after the Figaro was shown as the car of the wife of a famous Dutch singer in the second season of their reality soap in 2009. Instantly a lot of other celebrities wanted one. TV presenter Lauren Verster (also her boyfriend between 2011 and 2015 has been spotted driving her Figaro ), footballer Robin van Persie and Dutch actress Carice van Houten are also supposed to be (ex-)owners of Figaros. The latter did a photoshoot together with actress and writer Halina Reijn with that particular Figaro. So after the feature in the reality soap in 2009, the Figaro market was booming in the Netherlands!
Registrations
I recently found a website that scrapes the Dutch license register and aggregates the data per manufacturer and model name. That’s excellent to find out how many cars of a specific model are registered. I found that a total of 269 Figaros are registered in the Netherlands and the graph below shows the boom starting in 2009.
What I find puzzling is that two Figaros have been registered in 2001 and then for six years none were registered. The Figaro was only 10 years old in 2001, so it wasn’t an interesting car yet. By 2007 and 2008 sales picked up and you can see the sales booming from 2009 onwards. Even though almost 15 years have passed since then, the Figaro remains a popular import. 2011 must have been the best year and sales have about halved since 2017. Yet still, over the past four years, an average of 15 Figaros per year made it to the Dutch shores. Combined that’s an increase of more than 20% of the total number of Figaros.
Spotting Nissan Figaros in my hometown
I have spotted five different Figaros Down on the Street over the past years, of which four were in my hometown. Five out of 269 is about two percent of the total number of Figaros in the Netherlands! I was able to take photos of three of these encounters. The one above here is new and is featured in the video I did over six years ago. The second one is another Figaro I already posted before on my blog. Unfortunately, in an external drive crash, I lost the photos of the third one.
Autobacs Seven wheels
The one above is the same as the one in the photos at the beginning of the post. I just encountered it on another occasion. That also allowed me to take a photo of the aftermarket wheels:
The wheels are true JDM wheels: Autobacs Seven Leben! However, just as I said in the video, I prefer the original wheels.
Above is the first Figaro I ever spotted in my hometown. Figaros were available in four colours: Topaz Mist, Emerald Green, Pale Aqua and Lapis Grey. This Figaro has been painted in a different shade than those four and has been resprayed. I must say this colour also suits the Figaro well.
Conclusion
So what makes my hometown so special? I live in the media city of the Netherlands called Hilversum, also known as Hillywood. Maybe I just happened to spot a lot of celebrity cars?
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