Wind back a few years and the chances of me saying “ oh! Of course I love my Nissan Micra” would have been slim to none. How time passes and situations change. A while back I had a stroke - My Stroke of Luck. One of the first milestones, apart from walking the length of our kitchen, was to get back behind the wheel of my car. I have always enjoyed driving. I have driven all over Europe and for a while even had an HGV class 1 license. I own a Dacia 4wd SUV. I tried driving it a couple of months after getting out of hospital. I didn’t really enjoy it, it seemed too big and clunky. Ingrid found me a dark blue Nissan Micra at a local garage. 05 plate, couple of careful owners and some not so careful. 1.4 16v engine. Umpteen thousand on the clock. From the moment I got in I was happy. It reminded me of my first ever car: a disgusting 1963 lime green Morris Mini Seven. 578 JPO. All mod cons: sliding windows, bit of wire to open the door, push-button floor start, foot switch operated headlights, no synchro-mesh between first and second gears, single carburetor, and 750 cc of raw power. Managed to get it all the way to 80 once.
My old Man got me this car around about my 14th birthday. We had 9 acres of fields around the pub he leased in Sussex. That’s where I taught myself to drive; thrashing around and around as fast as I could go. For years I had been sitting in his cars and “changing gears”, pretending to drive. Driving was one of his great passions. During WW2 as part of the BEF he was a driver/translator stationed around Le Mans in France. He was a bit of a linguist. He spoke French like a native, Spanish and Italian with a high degree of fluency; had a thorough working knowledge of German and Dutch and amazingly he was a fabulous Russian speaker. For a number of years he attended the 24 Heure du Mans 1932-39 and 1949-52 befriending the drivers and mechanics.
During the heady days of the 1960’s, when anything seemed possible and Britain was riding the crest of the wave, we, the family, that is, would visit the National Motor Museum at Beaulieu in the New Forest, Hampshire. In those days it was simply called the Montagu Motor Museum and was an adjunct of Beaulieu House and Gardens. Full of astounding cars, we made the journey there several times as I was growing up. I recall the Bond cars, GEN 11 from Chitty Chitty, Bang, Bang. The fabulous Golden Arrow and of course the older cars such as the deDion Bouton. Naturally, he knew Louis Giron who ran the workshops there, restoring the old vehicles. But, that was my old man; wherever we went he would know someone. Perks of being in the licensed trade for years I guess.
I am back in my Dacia SUV these days, but for twelve months when I needed to be reminded of my youth, my trusty Micra was there.
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