There’s a bit of a story about how I came to be united with this car. I had been living in Canada for 2 years, and when making plans to move back to the UK I realised I was about to lose my no claims bonus.
I needed to find a car fast, and so the search began for something cheap, cheerful and reliable. I was on the lookout for a K11 Micra. I had mentioned the quest to a few friends. Then, when I was at a pub in Chicago one of them sent me a link to a Facebook post. An old lady was selling a Micra for £100! I saw it was gold, named it Nugget and the decision had been made.
I was on an overnight flight back to the UK landing at 7:30am and was due to meet my new team in Reading that morning. I decided that I had enough time to pick up this car en route and drive to the office. The adventures in Nugget had begun.
Why a Micra?
I needed something cheap, cheerful and reliable. It was the obvious choice. My first car was a red Nissan Micra. When I was 18 I drove it through France and Andorra down into the south of Spain where I lived for a few months. It never let me down, and evokes memories of adventure that I wanted to reconnect with.
When my friends came to visit we even ended up in Morocco briefly as we thought it’d be a great idea to get the ferry across after a day trip to Gibraltar. It wasn’t. But I feel well prepared for the fun to be had at border crossings.
I sold this car to my sister when I was at university, but always planned on keeping it in the family so that one day it could do the Mongol Rally.
To my horror, she scrapped it while I was in Canada (although kindly sent me the key as a memento). So I needed to find another one.
RIP the Beast. Long live Nugget.