- For Christ's sake, not another bloody Nissan.

Overdoing it, a love story.

or, a series of sudden explosions.

By Ted Melton.

No sooner than my British driving license is attained do I acquire as a gift through my presumably loving parents, a small blue shoebox which someone has amusingly labelled 'Nissan'. Hilarious. Oh no, wait, it's a tiny family hatchback. Ego bruised I take the keys with the brightest smile and the biggest 'Thanks Dad, thanks Mum' that I can manage. It is my first 'official' car. I and It are both fully insured with licenses sound and ready to trundle so I do a reasonable impression of sincere thanks and set off to do some damage to my credibility.

Up to this point in time I have had plenty of opportunities to chuck wee hatchbacks about but suddenly things are different. I have a car that I can keep. No longer am I forced to cycle through them at speed, I can now take some time, and some care, to love and cherish this vehicle. Never mind that it has as about much charisma as soiled undergarments I will make it mine and I shall love it as if it were my own child. First the bushes and brakes are upgraded slightly. This tightens the decidedly Japanese steering up nicely and makes the brakes entirely meaningless until warm. This makes short journeys suddenly take on an interesting new flavour even though the original OEM equipment was worryingly useless, with a mile of dead-zone in the dreadfully slack steering and suspension so bouncy you'd swear it was made of old chee...

Uh-oh! The engine has popped. Um. I suppose that's the consequence of building it entirely out of aluminium. Super-lightweight, yes, but also a little fragile. Just like the slate grey interior. Apparently, free-revving the thing through 9000+ revs isn't great for it's longevity. Or the conrods. This was never an expensive car, bought on the open market for a paltry £500 (it was a token hand-me-down rather than that long dreamed for 'cooper' my fellow writer attained as his first road-legal wheels), and when it blew I was disappointed but I soon had a replacement. This time I decided to try the 1235cc 5-door, now in an ever so slightly frosty red. Sunroof too, classy. I took all the parts out of the first chassis that I had had added by my local mechanic. Having somehow fitted almost all of it to the new car (I gave up on a couple of the really tricky bushes) I then uprated the steering wheel to a totally legit 'omomo' steering wheel and gave it a shorter gear throw with the help of a re-welded gear lever pivot. This time things would be different. This time I would be a little less reckless and just a shade more...

Nuts. I've broken it. Petrol goes in, noise comes out, not much else. You know, like a Chevy. One RAC call and a look under the bonnet later and a snapped gearbox output shaft is diagnosed. No problem, just get a replacement and we're good to go. Unfortunately this takes nearly three weeks as parts are not so plentiful or cheap as your average French hatchback. This shows in the insurance slightly also. Oh well. Now I've got it back it I think I'll add some more parts. Strangely the engine though larger than the last one seems less powerful. Perhaps it is torquier (the gearbox would attest to that) but not quite so rev-happy. Aside from the extra doors and cc's it's fundamentally identical to my previous Micra and despite my jerry rigged modifications it's not exactly superb machinery. I have since come to think that it was for the best when it finally cracked it's block, spewing hot guts all over the road and coasting to the nearest level place...

This time it was personal. Another 987 3 door but a facelift version with a minor upgrade to it's electric carb, and a snazzy new grille. New bushes, new panel filter, plugs, leads, stainless exhaust (you should have seen the mechanic's face when I asked him) and new fast road pads and discs from Japan-by-row-boat judging by how long it took to arrive. Some special potions from my bag o' tricks and the engine was clean as a whistle and thrumming along nicely, tuned (as it later turned out) slightly lean. Now this thing was a noticeable improvement to it's predecessors. predictably though, even as it was revvy as anything, It sadly never felt truly tight or nimble. Rather like it's younger brother the K11 it has a good balance, easily stirrable gears, 5 of them unlike my first one and an astonishing ability to get around corners in a way that really shouldn't be allowed, and come to think about it probably isn't. After a genuinely careful couple of thousand miles it felt like i had finally run her in. The lines of the lifeless interior had grown on me and the pleasing novelty of an indicator on the right hand side still shone bright in my heart. When your people all drive on the left hand side of the road and they sit on the right of the car such as we, to be able to steer and indicate with one hand, attached elbow permanently out of the window holding on tight to compensate for the total lack of seat bolstering in the otherwise comfy seating arrangement, is a joy. As is allowing your hand to rest permanently on the handbrake waiting to strike and change gear rapidly through the numbers. There was fun to be had in the little things and my sheer bloody mindedness meant than when number three went bang as well (conrods), the replacement car was identical, so there.

Red, 3 door, 987, no options. All the old parts from old to new chassis plus a clutch and some snazzy seats. Four figures spent, several days elapsed using the bus, Grrrrrr. Yay! Keys in the letterbox. I've worked out a pattern now though, clever me. Run in period followed by successively harder driving conditions. Nearly 6 months elapse. You know the story. Snap Crackle Pop goes the Micra and off to the mechanic fully aware of the sound of a blended gearbox. It could be worse...Except that it couldn't. The crank has sheared as well so its time for an engine out of the classifieds (remember those?) and a quick gearbox replacement from Japan....um.....wait a minute......any second.....2 weeks to find a box in the first place. Another 8 for shipping. Thankfully the crank comes from the same place and an entertaining artefact of it's origin is that it is lightened and balanced for racing. The change in the power delivery is remarkable. It's hopeless. Spinnnnnning from 900 up to 14000rpm and with a new carb attached through an adapter plate to throw some buckets of petrol into the block. It will now top out at a frankly frightening 125 miles an hour(200 kph for our less fortunate friends). A standard K10 987 with four people inside, running full-tilt down a long downhill stretch of motorway can actually acheive around 115 but on a level road with only the person driving it's more like 95. For the record 0-60 in the base spec is around 10 seconds, slightly better than the quoted figures. This new one could do it in under 8.

I even had already bought a replacement shell and some new consumable components for the day when things went bang again. A new clutch and gearbox at great expense were sitting in a garage not going in to the current car intentionally. As a store of parts grew so my aspirations grew. I almost couldn't wait, hoping it was the engine that gave out and not the gearbox so I could replace it and not waste such a good replacement before I was ready. When the great day came it went straight to the garage with the new parts and clear instructions. As I was such a good customer it was done in days. Amongst the usual parts were also some embedded lamps reminiscent of the Super Turbo and a genuine spoiler from same. New 5 spoke alloys completed the look and I even painted the callipers a dazzling white. She was a dream in cherry red and black plastic finish. I took her everywhere. Even across the seas. Down to France, The capital city, Paris, City of Love for the weekend and later all across southern and eastern Spain. And I treated her too for the icing on the cake was my proudest achievement. A custom fit, Eaton M45 supercharger. My baby. My angel. We had a blast together, flying through the mountains like a couple of lost lovers eloping together. Sure, the brakes would never be all that great, and the lack of torque was aggravating up hills, Okay so she was a little noisy, and only really took off in higher revs on the cammy twelve-valve head with high-lifts, but she was loved and we overtook many a confused bigger car. After all, she may feel a little flabby on the inside, but she seems to just glide about everywhere. Anything too sharp and you just control your understeer around any bend, like ol' Smoky Rhodes in his mighty Minis. She's ridiculously light too, designed to be frugal, her economy bringing high revs and excellent road holding. Accidental genius in a little red biscuit tin.

The super turbo.

A risky online bid in the earlier days of ebay. A long and anxious wait and finally a knock at the door following a breathless phone call the night before. I haven't owned a Micra in a long time, a couple of years at least. And despite some excellent material to work with in the intervening period (puma, Ka, Pugs, both 106 and 306,Honda, Rovers and 2 Peugeot 405's)I was looking forward to getting back in the old girl. A couple of little parts to add myself but nothing serious. The ad was pretty clear about it being it good order, and this was so when it finally rolled off the back of the beaver-tail. A signature and a long and loving glance later and in I got rolling it straight to the mechanic and valet for parts and polish.

A side effect of my previous modifications was to inhibit torque at the lower range despite there being a supercharger. This is because it took so much energy to actually get the thing to provide power to the block that it took a long time to build boost. I was assuming that the new vehicle would not do this as the thing was designed to be compound charged. In fact this is the case but sadly at first I believed that this wasn't because it seemed a little slow. More driving and a little overtaking later an I had some worrying conclusions. Despite everything the steering would never be any good. the engine was sprightly and fun too those extra gauges and different coloured interior adding a racy vibe. Didn't need to add my own seats either...but it was to no avail. With a better crank the engine would spin up more quickly but I paled from fitting my old one to the super turbo out of sheer cowardice. likewise the cams. Really I might have been braver but I consider this car to be a classic so I didn't want to ruin it. After a few more weeks and an intermittent distributor problem I made a decision however. I couldn't risk the car. I wouldn't risk the car. Constant fear of breaking and ruining this marvel hung like the sword of Damocles over my head. I would sell the March Super Turbo.

As waved good bye I consoled myself on making a small profit on the original price. The shipping was all on me but I now consider that rent for the use of the car. It could outcorner all but a Mini round the tightest corner. Despite the distant control feedback. It could achieve all manner of fast in a manner of speaking but there was always this fear. Would it last? Would the gearbox die and there would be no more? If you ever have difficulty finding the 'box for one of those, sorry, that was basically all me. As a tool it's excellent. As a looker it can be adjusted to look fairly tolerable and even passable. Some might even say a little cool, maybe. You can tune it and a growing scene of modders is making this easier but there are always going to be problems. It's a car of two halves. There's the lightweight agile FWD with a will to win and the rev-happy aluminium engine, it's spacious and trim too, if boring as toast.But there's the fragility of it too. It was designed to be driven slowly with shopping. It's light but it has no safety. Or features that add weight. Or driver involvement when all is said and done. She'll be coming round the mountain faster than anyone else but you just won't really quite relax. You never know when you're going to need your RAC number again.

I have and will always love the Nissan Micra. The K10 anyway. But enough time has passed for the pain to go away. We had a lot of fun and like a first serious girlfriend you learn a lot from the experience. But in the end it was not to be. She was a little too fragile, and I was a little too blunt. I pushed too hard once too often and she pushed back just a little too much and it all just came apart in the end. Some times I remember the good times but the bad times come flooding back to remind me just why I left. I'm sorry,. It could never really work.

It's OK though. I've since met a lovely little French number who's just as cute as a button. Goes like a rocket too.

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