Car of the Month - July 2009

For my birthday (15 August 2006), Den gave me a pink teddy with ‘Baby Girl’ stitched on it. He said my real present was to follow. I thought why has he bought me a pink teddy, are we expecting another grandchild!

The following Saturday he said he had to go to Englefield Green to collect my present and as you can imagine I was a bit peeved to get my pressie late! However he had to pop to Chertsey first to pick up a tool that he had left at a customer’s house? We arrived at Windisor Motors in Chertsey and Den popped in to the garage and came out with some keys. As I got out of the car I saw a beautiful pink and white bow arrangement on top of a gorgeous pink car, my car! I have to admit that at first I was embarrassed to drive it, I felt that it was a young girl’s car but I have had the most fun in it and it never fails to bring a smile to people’s faces and renderings of ‘Sheila’s Wheels’ and calls of ‘Hey Barbie and Ken’ and ‘love your car’ to name but a few.

Nissan announced it was going Back to the Future when it introduced the Figaro at the Tokyo Motor Show in 1989. It had a one litre turbocharged engine based on the Micra unit and was built for one year only. It was aimed directly towards YOLs – Young Office Ladies – well even in 1989 I certainly wasn’t one of those!

Nissan pledged to make only 20,000 of these little darlings and they were snapped up like hot cakes – in Japan. Up to last year around 600 had found their way here to the UK but my guess is that figure is growing more and more. Since I have had mine I have seen a pink GAL in Ashford, a pink H reg in Staines, a pink one full of young girls in Reading, about 2 black ones, several fawn ones, a beautiful red one and some green ones and even Sarah Ferguson has bought one for her daughter – perfect car for a princess and I have even seen a guy driving one!

Baby Girl and I have been well received at quite a few shows now and ‘she’ is constantly being photographed. Only the other day I came out of a bank in Slough and caught two young people photographing and admiring her. Practically she is much cheaper to run than my previous car, a 1985 Nissan 300ZX, and requires a smaller parking space. As with the Z she is a 2x2 and although very small inside, as I mentioned earlier she is capable of carrying at least 4 pretty young girls! On Sunday 18 May 2008 we attended the very first national gathering of Nissan Figaros at the Heritage Motor Centre, Gaydon, Warwickshire. It was to attend this show that Den was motivated to complete the project now known as Baby Girl too.

We were driving around the arena at the Cranleigh show in August 2006, and my husband, Dirty Den, told the announcer that he bought Baby Girl for my birthday on 15 August, just days before. The announcer asked me what could beat that for my next birthday and I quickly blurted out “a trailer to put my table and chairs in”! The seed was sown. Den looked on e-bay for back-ends of Figgys and eventually got one for 99p! Of course he had to go and collect it and purchase lots of bits for it and along with his good friend Malcolm they brought it back from Littlehampton, £250 lighter in the pocket.

The ‘shell’, as it was then known, stayed under cover in the back garden for quite a while as Den’s other responsibilities took over, including our new bathroom.

It so happened that 17 May 2008 was to be our 10th wedding anniversary and we had always planned to go back to our honeymoon hotel in Jersey. However we had been in Spain late 2007 and to cut a long story short purchased a new house there to be completed in January 2009. So, we decided we couldn’t afford the Jersey holiday. It was our friend Graham Penman, our club treasurer who first heard about the Fig08 show and sent us the link. I put our name down and we decided to have a long weekend break encompassing the show. This forced Den to work day and night to turn the shell into a trailer to match the pink Figaro known as Baby Girl.

There were several difficulties to overcome and not least that there is no tow bar for the figgy. When it was ready to go to the paint shop, Den had to make something up temporarily. He later went on to e-bay and purchased a new tow bar for a Mondeo for £65 and then set about adapting it to fit the Figaro and I have to say it is pure genius that it cannot be seen when not in use. The trailer, since named Baby Girl too, also has a petrol cap and aerial and of course the boot for the spare wheel. The Figaro car boot opens by pushing a button to the bottom left side of the driver which I was not happy with. I felt vulnerable leaving my shopping trolley to bend in to the car and push the button to open the boot, so Den fitted it central locking. However the same could not be done with Baby Girl too. He had to think of something else to open the boot. Den devised a push button in the petrol cap of the trailer and this links to another button which opens the boot, very clever. He has even carpeted Baby Girl too throughout. We had a spare sign for Baby Girl but had to get the logo and ‘too’ made up by Jeff Mendoza, a local design and graphics man.

I have never driven a car with a trailer before but felt sure it would be difficult, swinging around and going its own way but this is not the case. Everywhere that Baby Girl goes, Baby Girl too also goes, hence the too. It is a doddle. Not so easy to reverse apparently but Den can do it quite easily. In the right parking bay we can just manage to fit them both in. Oh and we were voted the car most people wanted to take home!