Here's the sensible way to conduct a road trip to New York. Drive to the Jersey shore and park. Take the ferry to Manhattan. Explore the city by cab, subway, bicycle or on foot.
But that's not an option for those of us invited to drive the Nissan Micra in the Big Apple on the eve of the New York Auto Show. The bait – we think – is a preview drive of the all-new Micra revealed last fall in Paris. Naturally, we're eager to drive the Canadian version. And if Nissan chooses Manhattan as the venue … well, it's their car and their event.
Job No. 1 requires us to drive the Micras from LaGuardia airport to our Manhattan hotel – a trip that should take 30 minutes on a good day. This isn't a good day.
Waiting for us in the airport parking lot like eager puppies are eight of the same Micra that's been sold in Canada since April, 2014. Turns out, the all-new Micra was for Europe. Canada sticks with the existing design that is built in Mexico and has a wider role as an affordable "people's car" for emerging markets.
As for the argument that Canada is not an "emerging market," Nissan Canada has a simple four-digit response: $9,988. The Micra was, at launch, and still is, the cheapest new car in Canada. Of course, at that price you don't get air conditioning or automatic, which is why only 8 per cent of Micras sold in Canada actually are the $10,000 base S model.
I pick a Micra at random for the drive to the hotel. It's the $10,000 base S model.
But then I get lucky. Somehow, I manoeuvre my co-driver into volunteering himself to drive to the hotel.
Distance: 14 kilometres. Actual drive time: two hours.
I will get my turn tomorrow morning, when Nissan sends us on a tour of some smaller attractions highlighted in the book, 300 Reasons to Love New York. Author Marie-Jöelle Parent, a transplanted Quebecker who looks like she is moonlighting from a day job as a supermodel, has chosen photo ops that include a miniature neighbourhood in Brooklyn called D.U.M.B.O. (Down Under the Manhattan Bridge Overpass), a minuscule museum (in an elevator shaft) and New York's narrowest house (2.9 metres wide, it once belonged to Cary Grant, and last sold for $3.25-million U.S.).
But that's tomorrow. First, we have to leave LaGuardia, where the S-O-P New York honking starts before we've driven five metres. Nissan wants us to drive in convoy as far as the Queensboro Bridge so they can photograph the little alien invaders (the Micra is not sold stateside) triumphantly entering the city. That means we have to begin by forming a line outside the parking lot. This displeases the local yokel trying to exit another lot into a street now blocked by a stationary train of Micras. Cue the honking.
The fact that the honker is driving a largish Lexus SUV turns out to be prophetic. Of all the cities in the world, you'd think New York would most enthusiastically embrace the concept of the city car. Uh, no. The ubiquitous yellow cabs may have downsized – more likely to be Toyota Prius Vs these days than Ford Crown Victorias – but the city is swarming with livery limousines, almost all them mid-size and larger, including hordes of Suburbans and Escalades. But even the private autos not wearing taxi/limo plates are mostly luxury SUVs or large pickups.
But at least today there are eight Nissan Micras getting noticed by other drivers in traffic snarl-ups that create ample opportunity for car-to-car conversation. "When did that come on the market?" asks one guy in a large delivery truck with a "Potty Pros" logo on its side. A guy driving a small bus asks what kinda mileage the Micra gets: "Maybe I should get one for my daughter for college," he muses.
The Micra has ample low-end torque for city driving.
Nissan
Of course, that can't happen unless she goes to college in Canada. Her loss. The Micra is hardly the most refined small car, but it's comfortable, with great visibility, a tight turning circle and ample low-end torque for city driving. Our four hours in stop-and-go Manhattan traffic – we managed to snag an automatic for Day 2 – yields 9.9 L/100 km.
No doubt many New Yorkers don't own a car or have cars they drive only at weekends to get out of the city. But that still leaves a bizarre number of people driving in and around New York in needlessly large pickups and SUVs. Consider this: A standard New York north-south block is about 80 metres long. If you crammed them in, nose-to-tail, you could fit about 14 Chevrolet Suburbans into that space. Or you could fit 21 Micras.
Of course, the best car for getting around New York is still no car at all. But if you must drive yourself, drive small.
The writer was a guest of the auto maker. Content was not subject to approval.