Introduction: The Ford Fiesta is an old model dating back to the 1976, the North American market did get the Fiesta until 1981 when it was replaced along with the Ford Pinto with the American Ford Escort. Ford would enter the subcompact segment again with the Mazda designed Festiva which in actuality is a Ford badged Mazda 121. This car was replaced by the Kia designed Ford Aspire. In Europe however, the Ford Fiesta didn't end in 1981 rather it got redesigned 4 times until North America would receive news the 6th generation Fiesta was coming to this market with CEO Alan Mulally's plan for a global lineup but also to boost Ford's average fuel economy.
I heard great things about the Ford Fiesta over in Europe. When I was watching earlier interviews with CEO Alan Mulally he seemed very excited about the prospect of bringing this particular car over to North America. You can't help but wonder how good is it when the CEO is extremely eager to show reporters the least expensive car in the company's entire global lineup. I expected good things from it so onto the review.
Performance: The Ford Fiesta in North America get only one choice of engine, the largest engine available being a 1.6L 4-cylinder engine. This engine produces 120 hp and 112 lb.ft of torque. As expected of a car with this amount of power its not going to be blisteringly quick. Its acceleration time from 0-100 km/h if about 10 seconds on the automatic, its slightly faster with a manual transmission at 9.5. Still the Fiesta is the heaviest of the lot weighing at about 2600 lbs making it the heaviest of the bunch. In spite of its weight, engine size and standard equipment, this is easily the most fuel efficient subcompact currently on sale today by a long way even without the SFE package. When driving like all small 4-cylinders its a bit noisy when thrashed but with civilized driving its not all that noticeable and it gets its torque a bit earlier than most subcompacts as well. Its quite nice, sacrifice some acceleration for a lot of fuel savings.
My Score: 9/10 - Wish it was faster but its hard to argue when it does what its supposed to do very well.
Handling: This was where I was hoping for a car to drive like the ones the Europeans keep saying is so great. Its not quite as I was expecting, but its better than what some naysayers were also saying. The steering is very light, but its surprisingly easy to drive and you get some inkling of feel which is difficult to achieve with electric power steering. The car is also quite tossable and agile, so you don't exactly feel the 2600 lb weight. Ride comfort is much better than what you get in the Honda Fit.
My Score: 8/10 - Not quite what I was expecting given the European reviews but for once if there was any watering down, it wasn't drastic.
Interior: Many say this is the Fiesta's party piece among the subcompacts that it had the best interior amongst them all. Certainly in SE form the Fiesta is well equipped with things like power windows, power locks, a decent stereo and a dash computer. The materials as you'd expect is mainly plastic. Yet despite this, the center console is rather interesting to look at, you can tell the stylist had some say in its layout. The seats are quite comfortable with good adjustment. On the visibility its quite good, although the sedan's trunk line is quite high. This interior does have some colour to it making it not as boring as its Japanese rivals. I didn't notice build quality issues with the Fiesta at all, these come from Hermosillo, Mexico.
My Score: 8/10 - Yes its mainly plastic but if you go one step up in class, that's still the norm and therefore it actually has a better interior than some cars in the next class.
Styling: I will say it right now, the hatchback looks pretty good, I liked the one in Europe and the one for North America is nearly identical. In hatchback form its definitely a good looking car as its got personality. Ford even used a normally unappealing green on the Fiesta and it looks fine with it, most cars would look awful with that colour. The sedan is less interesting, the rear is pretty standard looking while the front has to have the not very good looking tri-bar Ford grille. If they given the sedan the hatchback's face...you easily have the best looking subcompact.
My Score: 9/10(hatch) - Best looking hatchback for sale today.
My Score: 6/10(sedan) - Ruined by the stupid tri bar grille, sort of bland rear end.
Value for money: The Fiesta SE is not the cheapest car in the segment in fact it can be quite expensive the moment you start adding options. Your best hope making sense for buying a Fiesta is that for the price you pay for a decently equipped car like the SE you can save a lot more at the pumps giving you an overall nice car that's saving you money as gas gets expensive and the hybrid is out of the question because of costs. I personally believe this is the best subcompact you can buy today, its just a question of how tight you want to be with your money. You can spend a whole lot less with no frills Accents, Versas and Yarises but if you don't mind the lack of equipment there is a Fiesta S which is quite a bit cheaper.
My Score: 8/10 - In its class its pretty good value but its a bit on the high side. Fortunately the fuel efficiency and the nicer interior do soften the blow of the higher price.
Overall: 42/50(hatch) - A really good car in hatchback form subcompact or not.
Overall: 39/50(sedan) - Still a good car, just a bit uglier.
