Micra-wave

Meanwhile, the same website indicates there are far fewer of its nearest rival, the contemporary Vauxhall Corsa, still in use. The Micra seems to outnumber it four to one. For an hour or so I wandered around the streets where I live, close to the centre of Bristol, taking note of the number of small city cars from that era I came across. (Are there no lengths I will not go to for the amusement of Ti subscribers?). I counted ten K11 Micras, two Ford Kas, a single Peugeot 106, a sole VW Polo and literally no other Nineties superminis. 

I realise now that I should have photographed every Micra I saw with a copy of the day’s newspaper as proof. Those results must seem so unlikely. 

It may be unscientific, yet my research – if that isn’t too laughable a description of the morning I spent roaming about the streets with a notepad counting small cars like some sort of hatchback pervert – does seem to endorse my theory that K11s are everywhere. And if that is the case, I think I know why… More on that in a moment.

My mum had a K11 when I was young. It was red. The family mongrel, Tessie, so objected to being left alone in it for a short while one camping trip she tore the interior to shreds. Much later, it was in a white K11 that I learnt to drive.

I assumed that was me and the Micra done for good, but then Autocar challenged me to buy the cheapest used car I could find. I scoured the classifieds for really tatty old snotters, found one near to me with a ticket and sensible mileage and handed over £200. It just happened to be a K11 Micra – although I realise now how the dice was loaded in the Nissan’s favour.

Having done no more than adjust the tyre pressures and check fluid levels, I drove it 500 miles in a single day (because that’s the distance it had covered on average every month since it had been built) and the little trooper didn’t miss a beat. It sat just above the motorway speed limit for hours at a time and was fun to fling about on quiet B-roads.

I remember speaking to the chap who ran the Formula 1000 junior rally championship (where Elfyn Evans started his career, no less). The series used K11 Micras for years because they were readily available, strong, had great engines and, as the series founder put it, ‘they came out of the factory fundamentally well-balanced, like a Mk2 Ford Escort or Talbot Sunbeam’. The one I bought would understeer at the limit, naturally, but it had a certain poise about it even when the front axle had given up that made it adjustable and responsive.

I think the 500-mile exercise proved how functional a very cheap used car can be if you pick wisely (or, in my case, get lucky).

Afterwards, a couple of friends and I entered the Micra into a local grass track race. We had no spares whatsoever, only the four tyres it came with and no expectation of it lasting more than a few laps. Several hours later and as countless newer and more prestigious cars blew head gaskets, overheated or just broke all around us, the plucky Micra kept on buzzing around the field, slowly but insistently. Had we not completely misjudged the amount of time remaining in the race and pitted for an entirely unnecessary pitstop on what turned out to be the penultimate lap, we’d have stuck the thing on the podium.

Even after all that abuse, the car just kept on going. We spent half an hour in another field trying to roll it, but the little blighter wouldn’t tip over. I was reminded of the indestructible Top Gear Toyota Hilux. It was like the T-1000 from Terminator 2 – relentless and unstoppable – but with door mirrors and a smiley face. 

To understand exactly why the K11 has lived on while its peers have mostly expired, I spoke to somebody who began his engineering career at Nissan in the Nineties. David Twohig, actually. You may have heard of him.

From time to time, car makers pour massive resources, all of their expertise and enthusiasm and the latest big-car technology into even their most humdrum models. They go above and beyond. I suppose the defining example of that is the original Ford Focus, a car that made every other family hatchback seem off the pace in an instant. The K11 is another one of those.

‘One of my first real engineering jobs,’ David tells me, ‘was replacing the Micra’s instrument pack with an electronic version in 1995. K11s up to then actually still had a mechanical speedo cable and a clockwork odometer, believe it or not. Yours truly got the job of designing a fully electronic instrument pack and replacing the good old speedo cable with a Hall effect speed sensor that plugged into the gearbox. Cheaper, more reliable and much harder to clock. Good old days. So anyone who’s driven a K11 other than a very early one is looking at my handiwork every time they check the instruments.’

Launched in Europe in late 1992, the K11 was designed and engineered in Japan but with plenty of input from Nissan’s European Technology Centre in Cranfield, Bedfordshire, mostly on the product planning side. It was built in the Far East for local markets (where it was badged March) and in Sunderland for European buyers. The factory installed a second production line specifically for the Micra right alongside the Primera track, creating thousands of good jobs in the North East as it did so.

Styling-wise, it could hardly have been more different from the boxy and square-edged K10 Micra that came before. As David puts it, the K11 was ‘deliberately kawai (meaning cute or cuddly in Japanese), with rounded anthropomorphic forms, moving away from the edgier designs of the previous Micra.’

But it was all the ingenuity beneath the bodywork that really mattered, such as all-aluminium petrol engines with timing chains rather than belts, 16 valves with double overhead cams and redlines beyond 7000rpm. They weren’t powerful (the 1-litre produced 54bhp and the 1.3 74bhp), but they revved sweetly and were unburstable. This, remember, was when Nissan was busy manufacturing some of the best petrol engines out there, like the fizzy four-cylinder SR20 and the RB26 six-pot (a version of which powered the Skyline GT-R). Like both of those, the Micra’s CG engines were massively over-specified.

Mine had the 998cc motor. It was heroically slow, but the engine spun all the way to the redline without any of the wheeziness of a typical mid-Nineties hatchback lump. Keeping it whirling away at 6000rpm or more was part of the fun.

The K11 was also one of the first modern cars of any kind to use high-tensile and ultra-high-tensile steels in its construction. That made it strong and durable. Earlier Nissans were known for rusting through from nose to tail in a matter of years, so for the K11 the Japanese marque worked hard to put that reputation right, using high-grade, anti-corrosion materials. It’s one of the reasons there are so many still on the road today – although their sills can rust, as indeed had mine.

It was in production for 12 years, facelifted in 1997 with a more grown-up appearance. Throughout its life and long after it was a favourite among first-time buyers, driving schools and little old ladies – as well as the next generation of rally stars.

Sheer volume must explain to some extent why so many Micras are still on the road today. Throughout the Nineties it was among this county’s best-selling cars and many will have been cared for fastidiously by diligent owners. But tough engines, anti-corrosion steels and a very likeable character – the kind that meant you’d keep an ailing Micra going rather than have it scrapped – will have played their part, too.

The second-generation Micra belongs to that strange category of very dull cars that are actually quite interesting – over-engineered, packed with technology and still going strong because of it.