Nissan Pixo - Review

The year is 2011 and Jeremy Clarkson is on our screens testing the Nissan Pixo. And he rather pans the little car for being as sparsely equipped as a prison cell and about as engaging to drive as a mattress. So he and the short one set off to find out what cars you could buy for the value of the Pixo if you're prepared to shop around on the second hand market. So he and the vertically challenged ended up with a Merc CL600 and a BMW 850Ci. But what would life have been like for them if they'd purchased a Pixo instead? Well, I owned a Nissan Pixo from my 17th Birthday right the way through until the 6th of April 2018 when I traded it in for a Suzuki Jimny. So here follows an in-depth review of the Nissan Pixo.

Is it fast?

No. Although I did see 104mph out of it on a deserted M40 in the wee hours of the morning. (Speeding isn't big or clever kids, don't do it!) But as with many things, what goes up must come down, and what speeds up must also slow down. And trying to slow down from the dizzying heights of 167kph takes a bit more than a set of tiny discs up front and drums on the rear. I'd never experienced cooked brakes before, and experiencing them for the first time at what was about 95mph was botty clenching to say the least. However my recollection of the car at that speed was a surprising level of stability for such a short wheelbase and podgy suspension.

So this isn't a car for those who like to hustle on B-roads?

Yes. And no. It's no Lotus Elise. It doesn't sell itself as a handling car by any turn of the phrase. But, if you think carefully about what you're doing, and treat it as an exercise in maintaining momentum it does come alive a little. The feedback through the wheel and chassis is frankly non-existent, but if you tune in to what crumb of communication you get then you can actually start to have a little fun. I found that you could really begin to push the car, trim your line with the brakes and power understeer out of bends like a classic Mini. The only real fly in the ointment was the skinny skinny tyres. You could have some fun with the handbrake, and peel away from junctions in a flurry of spitting rubber and screeching, but on the limit the tyres were shocking. Instead of the grip fading away gradually they hit a cliff and then drop off, so for one moment you're carving a perfect line, but then the bend will tighten and if you don't lift enough, you'll just plough straight on. Cue bottom clenching once again.

But surely that means it has a comfortable suspension set up?

Yeah. It's not hugely uncomfortable. It rides well over broken tarmac, and if your spine is young and supple, you don't need to worry hugely about speed bumps. The tyres have a decent amount of sidewall and there's a good amount of rubber and spring in the suspension to keep things smooth and comfortable. The seats add to this nicely. I have a fantastically bony bottom and can quickly find some car seats uncomfortable, but once set right the Pixo's chairs were actually not too horrendous. Long hours in car on a road-trip to Cornwall proved to be problem free.

Swapping to the snow tyres, after driving from Reading to Bedford through a heavy snowfall on the bald summers. Once again, very bottom clenchy, and quite sideways at points.

Swapping to the snow tyres, after driving from Reading to Bedford through a heavy snowfall on the bald summers. Once again, very bottom clenchy, and quite sideways at points.

So not all bad?

No, not really. The rear bench drops down to form a small van that can be crammed with camping kit, guitars, polo kit, or four large holdalls. Seats up and the boot is quite small, but it is a tiny city car, so that's almost to be expected. You don't buy this expecting Volvo 850 levels of boot space. And if you do, well you need a talking to really. As a first car it ticked enough boxes as it was cheap to run, cheap to insure, reliable, capable of holding a surprisingly long powerslide in the snow and was unlikely to get stolen because, who would?

Is it well equipped?

No. It has all the exciting features of a pebble. Air-con? No. Electric mirrors? Nope. Electric windows? Nah. Wind the fronts down and the rear ones simply pop out. Heated seats? No, you get pleblon and whatever temperature they are at when you sit on them. A rev counter? NO! How decadent a feature. You simply shift when the valves pop out onto the bonnet and do a little dance, it is a small Japanese engine, it's built to rev. Body coloured bumpers? I hope you like big black lumps of plastic! Split folding rear seats? Nada. You've got a two seater van or a four seater hatchback, take your pick. A rearview mirror? Yes. Standard equipment. Alongside paint, and four wheels plus one to hang onto.

You do get a CD player, but that had a tendency to eat and destroy CDs. Go over bump too hard and it'd scratch the disk. And there was no auxiliary input to the stereo, so it was the radio, your scratched CDs or nothing. But equally, features and stuff like that can go wrong, and then need fixing! At a cost.

Dog guards also were not available on the options list, so Buster (20?? - 2019) was often my co-driver. Terrible at pace notes, and would drool on the handbrake.

Dog guards also were not available on the options list, so Buster (20?? - 2019) was often my co-driver. Terrible at pace notes, and would drool on the handbrake.

What if I need to go off-road?

Actually, the Pixo fares OK off road. For a regular passenger car on tyres so skinny they'd make Posh Spice look obese it actually did quite well when I'd take it down the green-lanes of Bedfordshire.

Old photos mean Snapchat text stuck on them too. But look at that mud!

Old photos mean Snapchat text stuck on them too. But look at that mud!

So Clarkson was wrong?

No. He told it like it was. The car is still uninteresting, and frankly a marketing idea in what you can take away from a car, but still sell as a car. Think of it as the Nissan Micra lite. All the vacuous character with none of the added calories. The better way of putting it was that James May was right. Yes you can buy a more interesting, exciting, faster, better equipped car for £7000, but if you just needed some car, you might as well have bought a Pixo.