Walking near Regents Park last summer, we turned down a side street of well-mannered and wealthy-looking houses, and to my surprise spotted three unusual cars in the one block. Here they are!
Revai, or G-Wiz
This little car (and we mean little, as the picture just below shows) has an historic claim: Until Tesla and the Nissan Leaf came along, it was the world’s biggest selling all-electric car.
Built by Reva, an Indian company, it sold 4600 cars in 26 countries, but mainly in the UK, where it was renamed G-Wiz. Production ran from 2001 to 2012, and was replaced by a later model.
It’s so small and light that it barely qualifies as a car in the UK; in the U.S. it fits in the same “neighborhood electric vehicle” category as overgrown golf carts and can’t be driven on highways, and in Europe it’s a “heavy quadricycle.”
Despite its cute appearance, it didn’t really catch on. Part of that may have been the nearly £9995 price for a tiny car that was criticized as “underpowered, unsafe and ugly. The British car show “Top Gear” awarded it Worst Car of 2007.
Nissan Figaro
Retro has been a ‘thing’ for a while these days, with cars like the VW New Beetle, the Mini, the PT Cruiser and others. But Nissan could claim to have started it with its 1991 Figaro and its mates. Under the slogan “Back to the Future,” Nissan built 4 retro models on the Nissan Micra chassis.
The Figaro reminded many of the Italian designs of Pinin-Farina from the 1950s, although Nissan claimed the body was based on the Nissan Fairlady of 1962.
In any case, the Figaro sold out in weeks, and production was extended so that 20,000 were built, beyond the original 8,000 planned. A lottery was held to pick buyers.
Because all of the Figaros were built with right-hand drive, used in both Japan and the UK, the car became a trendy purchase for UK buyers. They came in four colors, each representing a season; this one, in light aqua is a summer car.
Bentley Continental GT
But lest you think the block is home only to the tiny and quirky, here’s the big boy on the block: a W12 Bentley. This model’s still in production, and was introduced in 2011. The W-12 means what it says: It’s got 4 banks of 3 cylinders each, sort of like two V6s hooked together with a common crankshaft.
But under its hood, it’s hiding another secret. Despite its proud and long-standing British name, and despite being built in the Bentley factory at Crewe, it’s a Volkswagen at heart, sharing a platform with the VW Phaeton. VW acquired Bentley in 1998. They actually acquired the whole Rolls Royce/Bentley car business, only to discover that the Rolls Royce name didn’t go with the deal.
The name turned out to belong to the Rolls Royce aircraft engine part of the company, which sold the use of it separately to BMW. That brought to an end the era when Rolls and Bentley were the same car with different grilles. As a child, I remember ads in the New Yorker, touting Bentley as being the car for “those who are diffident about owning a Rolls Royce.”
If, of course, you had that kind of money. And if you do, you might want to know that the MSRP for this one is $214,600. For that, you get 582 hp, and gas mileage of 12/21. But of course, if you can afford the car, that’s peanuts!
