Another shift slots home like a vertical missile firing across the tight gate of the transmission. In the next nanosecond my left foot flies upwards like a loafer-clad leopard to cause clutch plates to collide like so many distant meteors and drive once more pulses and paws its way through the very heart of the car as we continue in our ball-out quest to make it to Kettering on time.
The mission may be massive but the car is not, as evinced by the faux metal moniker affixed to its short and shapely rump: Micra. Yes, this is the brand new version of Nissan’s bulbous baby, re-tooled and re-mixed for 21st Century v2.0 and assembled not by the stottie scoffing stalwarts of Sunderland but built by the bhaji boys of India. Question is, have they got curried away?
First impressions are of a beige trimmed passenger zone as airy as a spacious summer meadow. From wheel to a/c, all controls are exactly where you’d expect them, finding the driver’s focus and firing it forwards over that bug faced bonnet. But interior ergonomics are not what concerns us here. This micro Micra might have the style to seduce but can it put its hands down your pants when the blacktop starts to buck and bend?
That’s the question I am now barking straight into the Micra’s easy going ears as yet another gear change slots across the gate like a rifle bolt, creamy as a Devonian teatime. This control is nothing without power and the nubile Nissan’s thrumbly three pot does not disappoint, signalling its perky pedalings with a crispy whirr and the urgent arcing of its tiny tacho needle. So its pace is as cute as its face, but when Mr Corner comes a-calling will the little Nissan pretend to be out?
A micron turn of the Micra’s steering sends it spearing smoothly into a meeting with Mr Apex as the slick chassis soaks up bumps like metallic kitchen paper and the tiny tyres grip like a ketamine-crazed kitten on your curtains. On the hard entry to a particularly nuggety switchback I really upped the ante to ten-tenths by slamming shut the thirsty throttle. All at once the titchy tail stepped wide, I caught it with a dab of oppo and I was away.
The Nissan Micra 1.2 Tekna is a bitch. And I spanked it.
Troy Queef is Executive Associate Editor-At-Large for DAB OF OPPO magazine
The evenings are getting lighter, the temperature is getting warmer and all across the Northern Hemisphere people are looking vainly in the wardrobes before saying, ‘Gosh, I wish I could buy a T-shirt bearing the silly catchphrase of Troy Queef from Sniff Petrol, preferably in a choice three different colours such as blue, green or another sort of green and for just seventeen pounds or slightly more if I live abroad.’ Well, the good news is, you can.
With the Australian Grand Prix less than two weeks away, now is a good time to reflect on the leading teams’ performances in testing and, from this, to predict who will make a strong start to the 2011 season.
Och aye tha noo muthafukas! Crazy Dave comin’ atcha from he’s sitting room at home. Mmm, black leather and chrome. So this week, we is meant to be mixin’ up a phat one Bahrain stylee fo’ tha start of tha F1 2011. Fo’ shizz. But that ain’t happenin’ man cuz those cats in tha Middle of tha East, they got their own business goin’ down right now with tha Pearl Square protests an’ shit. Now Crazy D, he be all ready to be all up in yo faces with tha commentaryating next to ma man Marty B, but since he be stuck at home on tha Sunday, he be kinda bored. Tha’s why Crazy D, he go to a garden centre. Man, they go all kinds of bad ass shit there. They got hyacinths, they got chrysanthemums, they got herbaceous shit. Crazy D, he have a cup of muthafunkin’ tea in the café and then buy a sweet ass bag of compost. There gonna be some beddin’ later, and I don’t mean of tha laydeez. Oh yea. And don’t forget, the Formula 1 season now starts on Sunday 27 March, only on the BBC.
