At $11,000, Is This 1991 Nissan Figaro A Wide-Body Winner?
No one asked for a fat-fendered Figaro, and the seller of today’s Nice Price or No Dice edition fully delivered. Let’s see if this odd mashup has a not-so-odd price tag.
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Many times in life, it’s been said, that the journey is more important than the destination. Considering just how slow last Friday’s 1984 Ford Ranger Roll-A-Long camper is purported to be by its seller, one might be inclined to agree. Few of us could agree on the compact camper’s $18,800 price tag, however. In the comments, most of you pointed out that many better options exist in that price range, which resulted in a 71 percent No Dice loss for the Roll-A-Long.
If you’ve seen the 2002 Steven Spielberg flick, Catch Me If You Can then you have some familiarity with the life of that film’s real-life protagonist, Frank Abagnale Jr. An inveterate con artist, Abagnale impersonated doctors, commercial pilots, and others as a way to make millions through forgery, larceny, and outright theft.
I have to say that with the retro series of specialty cars the company built in the early 1990s, the Nissan Motor Company seemed to take a page from Frank Abagnale Jr’s playbook. The Pike Cars, so called because they were designed by Nissan’s Pike Factory special projects group, arrived in the late ’80s/early ’90s and are comprised of the S-Cargo van, the Be-1 mini car, Pao slightly bigger mini car, and the Figaro coupe/convertible.
All of these cars are based on the platform of Nissan’s mainstream March model. And, in Catch me If You Can-style, all also carry styling cues that were liberally lifted from iconic models not from Nissan’s past, but of other manufacturers. What is it they say about imitation being exceedingly flattering?
The coupe/convertible Figaro took its styling cues from small Italian cars of the 1950s and ’60s. There’s a lot of Fiat in its DNA, albeit with the retro interior styling masking a ’90s-tech stereo below the dash. The exterior was penned with a pronounced forward lean to the bodyline which gives the car the appearance of a very twee bulldog. Accenting that is a color separation between the body and the roof. Taken all together, the car would not look out of place in either the Piazza del Popolo in Rome, or cruising down the Champs-Élysées.
That, of course, applies to any stock Figaro. Today’s custom 1991 wide-body Figaro, happens to be another story. Perhaps the most amazing thing about this privately-imported JDM specialty car is not that someone decided to customize it in such a way, but that the body kit to do so even exists. Who does that?
Regardless, this Fig takes the bulldog stance and imbues it with some actual bulldog shoulders and hips. The car also eschews the Figaro’s original ‘two-tone-and-a-bit-of-chrome’ appearance for a monotone grey with just the black-painted windshield frame and door handles as accent. According to the ad, both the top and the fuel-filler door come with the car, but neither is shown in place in the provided pictures.
The cabin trades some of its retro kitsch for Recaro buckets and some shocking blue trim. The driver’s seat could stand a trip to the upholsterer’s but everything else looks intact, right down to the cool retro stereo and HVAC controls.
There’s apparently nothing modded on the March/Mirca drivetrain. That’s comprised of a 987cc SOHC turbocharged inline-four good for 75 horsepower and 78 lb-ft of torque and a three-speed automatic driving the front wheels. The seller says the car “drives amazing,” calling it a solid weekend car or daily driver. It rides on a lowered coilover suspension and Fatlace 15-inch alloys.
Despite all the obvious work that has gone into the car, the seller says it still needs some “TLC.” That includes new weatherstripping for the top and some cleanup to the paint and bodywork. Maybe a different color would be in order as well.
The ad notes a clean title and the seller calculates the mileage (the odometer is in kilometers, remember) to be around 104,000. It’s safe to say you would be the only one on your block to own a widebody Figaro. Hell, you’d probably be the only one in your state.
Such exclusivity comes at a cost, and in this Figaro’s case, that’s the $11,000 purchase price. Does that seem like a fair asking for so odd and rare a little car? Or, is that too much for a Figaro that’s been futzed with?
You decide!
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