The key turns, the CG13 catches on the first crank, and the whole car settles into that soft, almost apologetic idle these small Nissans have always had. Nothing dramatic happens. A green-blue paint job catches the late Riviera light, the automatic selector clicks into D without protest, and you remember that the 1993 Nissan Micra was, briefly, the most quietly admired small car in Europe. This one sits in Cagnes-sur-Mer, on the coast west of Nice, wearing 55,000-odd kilometres and a full respray.
Context matters here, because the K11 was no ordinary supermini. It won the 1993 European Car of the Year award, the first time a Japanese maker had taken the top spot, replacing the dated first-generation K10 with a huge leap forward. Built at Sunderland rather than in Japan, it carried genuinely new engineering under that rounded shell. Its all-aluminium 1.0 and 1.3-litre CG-series units were clean-sheet DOHC 16-valve designs, producing 55 PS (40 kW) and 75 PS (55 kW) respectively. That the design still looks calm and coherent three decades on says something about how carefully it was drawn.
Slow, and content with it
This is the 1.3 with the automatic, which in period meant Nissan's early continuously variable transmission. The N-CVT came as an option on the 1300cc model. Nobody bought a Micra to hurry, and the CVT suits the character: it lets the little twin-cam hold its revs and hum along without the shuffle of a conventional slushbox. The engines were silky-smooth in power delivery, making the Micra one of the most refined superminis of the early nineties. Light steering, a tall glasshouse, a cabin you could operate blindfolded. It makes a supermarket run feel unhurried rather than tedious.
The listing reads honestly: a 1.3 CX automatic with air conditioning converted to R134a, bodywork fully repainted, recent fluid and filter changes, new battery, four original alloys and four new tyres, with the technical inspection to be renewed for sale. Two things deserve a torch and a screwdriver, whatever the paint suggests. Early pre-facelift and first-facelift K11s suffered corrosion through poor design and a lack of factory rust-proofing, with particular concern around the front cross member and the open box ends it is welded to. Check too the bottoms of the doors, the rear wheelarches and the tailgate, and if a sunroof is fitted inspect the steel around it carefully. A fresh respray is exactly where filler over bubbling arches likes to hide, so the underside tells the truer story than the panels.
Why a humble one, now
At 5,300 EUR this sits toward the upper end of what a K11 asks, and the money only makes sense if the shell is as clean underneath as the finish implies. The appeal is narrow but real: interest in this generation has been building among people who want mechanical simplicity and predictable ownership, and a genuinely rust-free southern-French car, spared the Nordic salt that kills these things, is a better starting point than a low-mileage example from a snowbelt. A 1993 car has long crossed the historic-vehicle threshold in most European registries, with the cheaper registration and relaxed rules that brings. None of which substitutes for diligence: a proper inspection on a ramp, a look through whatever service record exists, and a check of the car's history are the sensible next steps before anyone commits. Get that right, and the key turns on something that was quietly excellent all along.
