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Kevin, Sue & Belle (Figaro) sales@figaroownersclub.com

If you’ve never attended a get-together, event or rally before we urge you to give it a try! There’s something magical about joining other Figgy owners and showing off our cute little cars.

f you drive a Figaro there’s something special about meeting other owners and sharing the love we all have for our fabulous little cars. Working with the Figaro Owners Club, members can now create and promote their very own Figgy event! This could be simply a meet up at a beauty spot you know with just a few cars or something more ambitious which involves a convoy route, the choice is yours. Once the event is created we can help you promote it through our events page on our website, newsletters, social media and local members. Click here

The wait is almost over and the much-awaited video of this incredible weekend is now only days away! We have some awesome drone footage and will be creating the video very soon. Watch a sneak preview below...

A few weeks ago there was speculation, the UK street artist Banksy had finally claimed responsibility for pieces of street art that had appeared on the east coast of England. It was too much of a temptation for member Francine Hendrie and 'Poppy' to go find some! The main picture is of three people on top of a bus shelter: two dancing and another playing the accordion. The location is Admiralty Road, Great Yarmouth, Norfolk. And the insert is of a vast seagull, painted on a gable wall in a more elaborate manner than one often sees in his work, hovers over a skip filled with huge carved chips (Poppy is in front of the skip). The location is Katwijk Way, Lowestoft, Suffolk, on the side of a house in Denmark Road. Go see if you can check them out...

Thanks to South West Chapter Coordinators Lynette & Rob Parsons who organised a nice drive out last Sunday. 7 cars turned up and enjoyed the meeting in Bradford on Avon. The drive route ending at Avebury Manor.

To understand what the needs of our members are, we decided to survey them on the Facebook Group earlier in the year and 'Car Shows' were the second most popular idea after day trips.

So, while we had never attended a car show with a car before, let alone organise for members to attend with us, when we saw what was planned at Helmingham Hall we really wanted to go!

Helmingham Hall is a beautiful moated house with listed gardens and this annual event came with rave reviews … hundreds of cars, thousands of attendees and all kinds of music, entertainment and stalls. And better still we got a great deal on entry fees! We needed to finalise numbers around a month before the event itself, so with the very welcome assistance of Kevin, we got the plans in motion, promoting out the event. Steadily the numbers grew until we have 12 cars booked. Edward kindly agreed to bring his gazebo, while Mandy brought some very handy stakes which we used to put up our orange bunting to match with the club’s colours!

In the days before we kept an eye on the uncertain weather, but things brightened up as we were advised that we were being upgraded to the Club Stand Arena and that over 7,000 tickets had been sold! The day came with an early start and some of us meeting at a nearby service (where lots of other attendees were gathering too) and so we headed over in convoy to Helmingham. We arrived on-site to our own special area, where we tried to work out how much space we had and whether we could fit everyone in!

We had a great range of Figaros (and members!) on display, and were lucky enough that Colin and Lesley brought their Figaro and Figaro Trailer which certainly attracted a lot of attention!

And so, like that, the day was coming to an end, we started dismantling our area and members started heading off… the rain had just about held off and we had a chance to reflect on what had been a pretty good day! And one last thing, a Newsletter Exclusive, I was in touch with Helmingham the following week and it turns out that while they announced the winner of the best club stand on the day, they didn’t announce that our stand had come second! So that was the feather in the cap on what had been a lovely day out for members of the Eastern Chapter!

Enjoy some of the pictures

I feel so lucky to have found her. Sadly we were in an accident 12 days after owning Freya but she’s now looking better than ever after the amazing Figgy community came to the rescue, a new door, mirror and chrome sourced – I’ve had a real learning curve rebuilding her with a friend, bolting the window motor into the new door and fitting and cleaning her. Her internal is now shiny and clean after a lot of elbow grease!

My eldest daughter Annabelle (8) wants to start a wedding car and hire company and has even sourced the name… ‘Belles and Beaus Figaros’ and now looking to source another car who will be called Rosie.. to add to her personal fleet. A business entrepreneur at 8 – so I’m going with it and seeing how it could flourish! Not sure she will be able to wait until 17 to drive Rosie though!!!!

Lowri (blonde twin) and Felicity (brunette) are 2 Lissy for short * love Freya and refuse to get in our Seat Alhambra and insist on helping clean her and hug her a lot!!! A total figgy Family convert!

Hope you don’t mind sharing our story with you but a lot has gone on and Freya is so special to all of us, our time to bond, my adult time and family time.

But, having had the 2020 CarFest North (inevitably) cancelled due to the pandemic there was a genuine sense of hope, but not a little trepidation, about going along to a car focussed music festival in the current climate. This was even more clear when, on the first night from the stage Chris Evans said that Carfest North had been 4 weeks away from going bust, as they had to make a decision 4 weeks from the event date to go ahead and engage all their contractors (at massive expense) with the risk that Covid restrictions might make the festival impossible to run. They took the risk, and boy, are we glad they did!!!

Numbers attending had been reduced to allow a measure of social distancing (although the requirement for this had been lifted in England before the event). This meant it was more comfortable to get around the site and watch the music acts than with the normally much larger, numbers.

We had five Figaros along, myself, Alan and Sheena Harvey; Katherine Clark and Steve Paget; Darren and Lisa Samuels (along with Emily and Alice, CarFest ‘veterans’ having been 14 and 4 months old respectively in 2014 and 2015 at their first CarFests!), and Dominique Pearce and Philip Sparrow. Dominique told me, as we had a pub meal with our fellow participants on the Thursday night, that she had visited the Figaro stand at CarFest North in 2015 at Oulton Park on the Sunday and, by the following Sunday she had her own Figaro!!!

I’ve lost count of the number of people who have said they got their Fig after visiting us at CarFest, but this is the first time one of them has actually ended up joining the club and exhibiting with us!! Setting up on Thursday was slightly different with confirmation of a negative lateral flow test required before access, with this to be repeated during the weekend. However, the organisation was, as ever, impeccable by Brand Events and given the massive uncertainty the staff had about the event going ahead, they deserve a real vote of thanks for their efforts.

Once again, the music offering in the evening covered all tastes, with my personal favourites being The Fratellis; Rag’nBone Man; Paul Heaton and Jacqui Abbot and the wonderful CarFest Supergroup - The Feeling supporting Freya Ridings; Beverley Knight and the one and only Roger Daltrey!!!

If you’ve had a look at the 2019 CarFest North photos you will be aware we had just a little rain (biblical downpours, in fact, for 3 days!), but, this year we had NO rain!! The weather was fantastic from start to finish with the only problem keeping hydrated and getting the sunscreen on! All five Figaros have already expressed interest in CarFest North 2022, so, as we might be limited to eight cars for our display please let me know if you fancy it - its usually the 2nd last weekend in July (2022 dates to be confirmed) But, I’m afraid I can’t guarantee the 2021 weather!!!

Florida based member Michael Cohen was gutted he could not make our 30th Birthday Party but decided to make up for it by going on a 5-weeks adventure taking in New York, both Manhattan and Long Island, Main and Road Island, passing through Massachusetts and the tip of New Hampshire, and a tad bit of Connecticut for good measure!

Following the cancellation of last years event, it was fantastic to have the opportunity to attend, especially as it was the cars 30th birthday! The following members attended Elizabeth Curwen, Tracy Hill, Tracey Somerfield, James King, John Knibbs, Thomas Smith, Kylie Pentelow, Emma Hosted, Philip Parsons, Fiona Blarney, Julie Welch, Caroline Jones & Alysha Hall.

Enjoy some pictures from the parade lap

After the disappointment of last years cancellation due to Covid, we were happy to see the event go ahead. Patrick Light rallied the troops in Cornwall and like Sue and I drove up on the day before.

The weather forecast kept changing throughout the week but we were so pleased that the thunderstorms happened on Saturday the day before and Sunday looked fine and dry.

It was agreed that we would all meet at 9.00 in the morning outside the Travelodge Hotel and convoy to the field. It may go down as the shortest convoy in history as in reality that meant turning left out the car park, right at the end of the road and left after 50 meters. At least we didn’t lose anyone haha. It was a great call to do this however as it meant we could arrange all the figs to be parked in a nice row, unlike most of the other car clubs which had cars scattered around the field.

The sun came out around 10 and the two gazebo’s created perfect shade for us all and the ideal base to explore from. In addition to hooking up with friends, Sue and I enjoyed all the fantastic cars on display. The figs attracted the usual amount of interest and look stunning parked in a perfect line of different colours.

Peter Pattermore with his stunning engine bay. Apparently he removed the engine to thoroughly clean the bay!

Pete Pattermore ‘Sally’ was the stands 'Figaro Magnet' and sucked lots of people in for a closer look, it really did have so much interest throughout the day. I thought the engine bay in Belle was clean until I saw Pete’s. You really could eat your dinner off of it, awesome stuff. We had 15 cars on the day so a huge thanks to Patrick Light and everyone who attended.

GIVE US A WAVE - WATCH OUR VIDEO FROM THE DAY

Despite the ongoing Covid issues and a terrible weather forecast we still managed to get 6 figs to this lovely little car show. Scottish Chapter Coordinator Ken Graham take up the story.

Once again this year, as in 2020, car shows and events have been seriously affected by Covid-19 with few, if any, getting the go-ahead due to restrictions on gatherings.

The Kames Car Show in Muirkirk took place on Sunday 8th August. Ayrshire managed to get the official Council approval to go ahead, so what had been our only show in 2020 with the Scottish Figaro Chapter was again one of the very few we managed in 2021!

Once the show was publicised members were really keen to get to a show and numbers ‘expressing interest’ built steadily until we had 18 Figs signed up and I had to contact the organisers to see if they could accommodate us all! They said they could, but I closed the list at that point to keep it manageable.

As the date approached a few members had some traditional Figgy problems, the over-running paint shop work; general repairs needed; and most, unfortunately, a seized engine which couldn’t be replaced until the new Figaro pistons became available! So a few ‘mechanical’ call-offs, and then - the weather forecast!! In the run-up, the forecast for the day switched between thunderstorms, heavy rain, light rain and back to heavy rain and thunderstorms again! The night before I received messages and emails saying ‘the weather looks awful, not sure of a full day in a soggy field!!’ Inevitably, and completely understandably, we had a few more call-offs, so ended up with a perfectly acceptable six Figaros at the show.

As the photos show, we probably had a bit more dry weather than wet but the heavy showers and

predicted awful weather probably kept some of the public at home. However, we had our usual high level of interest in the cars, from the ‘What on earth are these?’, ‘How much would one cost?’, and ‘Do they still make them?’ to the ‘Oh, my daughter has one, and she loves it’!

Held over the long Bank Weekend (UK) 3rd & 6th June 2022, the event features a drive out on Saturday and a closed street run on Sunday where the historic town of Laon comes to a standstill and the locals come out to enjoy the spectacle.

Along with the Mazda MX 5, the Nissan Figaro are the proud Marque of Honour* for the 2022 Laon Historique, the biggest classic car pilgrimage to Europe, and as such will enjoy an exclusive display parking area and will be the prominent marque for the Saturday Run and Sunday Parade.*As the Marque of Honour we will enjoy exclusive display parking areas and will be the 'prominent marque for the Saturday Run and Sunday Parade!