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Hatchbacks Ford Fiesta Article Comments - 2009 Ford Fiesta First Drive and Full Test
91 messages, Last post on Nov 20, 2009 at 12:28 PM
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First Drive: 2009 Ford Fiesta - First Impressions: Small European cars haven't made much of an impression in America before, but the Fiesta might be different.(more)
2009 Ford Fiesta Titanium Full Test and Video - Bottom Line: We're crossing our fingers (and toes) that Ford doesn't stray too far from this winning combination of style, performance and efficiency when the 2011 Ford Fiesta finally arrives in 2010. (more)
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| Not unless we get the three door too! My fear is that they start out with no three door and then soften the suspension of the sedan for "Murcans". Yuck! I thought by now they would have strangled or laid off the mouth breather who made these kind of marketing decisions in the past. I WANT this car but if they pull a Westmoreland Rabbit marketing strategy, I won't touch the thing. I offer them a better plan: The sedan priced down in the mid teens to start - decent equipment plus options if you want to pay for them. Option up the three door, hotter engine (equal or better than Mini), sports package, etc. - priced under a base Mini plus options (about $23K, we all know how those add up on the Mini) , say, $20-21K (with the usual nav, radios, wheels, etc. options for those that want to spend the bucks (most of us). I know there will be price compression with the upcoming Focus but the cooking Focus will go heads up against the GTI in the $25-26K range so there appears to be room. One last proviso: The engine in the hotter Fiesta has to be special and recognizable as such. Definition: Very good like it is but upgradeable or tunable by both factory (twin turbo 1.4 for instance) or aftermarket (stout enough for turbocharging with maybe a closed deck block and high spec crank and rods. Just one geek's ideas, you Edmund's guys got get 'em and we'll all dance at your wedding(s) as my Granma used to say! | |
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American car companies and small, affordable cars have never gone well together. No, they were too busy lavishing all of their love on gas guzzling SUV's and trucks to keep the fat assed, cash rich, dumb Americans happy. Now all of a sudden the asses have shrunk due to no money to feed them, and they have gotten a little smarter with their view towards small cars, due to skyrocketing gas prices. I say a "little" because we're still not nearly as accepting of them as the Europeans, but we're getting there. I for one have always loved small, fuel efficient cars and for many years there has been little of quality to choose from. What about the "Cavalier, Sunfire, Colbalt, Neon, Ion, Colt, Escort, Aveo" I hear you say, yeah, right, take another bong hit! Garbage, every last one of them, No, to get a well made small car you're only option was to go Japanese or German. With Ford looking to Import the Fiesta, and Chevy the Cruze it's obvious nothing has changed. American car manufactures and designers are still too drunk from the spiked punch of the SUV/Truck years for them to build anything on the level of a Mazda 3, Honda Fit, Honda Civic, Hyundai Elantra, Mitsubishi Lancer, Toyota Corolla, or Volkswagen Golf. Well fine, let them import. But my opinion of American car companies is so low, I know something will get lost in the translation. It will get here as a soft, cheap, poorly made bottom feeder instead of the car it is in Europe. That is because American car companies, and lots of Americans for that matter equate small with cheap. Ford is as American as it gets when it comes to shallow American thinking, so I wouldn't hold out much hope for this car being more than a cheap little runabout to satisfy the govt's impending CAFE regulations. |
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| For all of those folks complaining that we are not getting the three door hatch, it was only a last minute decision by Farley that we got the five door. Keep in mind Ford killed the three and five door hatches in the Focus in the US due to low sales and gave us the coyote ugly models that we have now. If the five door takes off like a bottle rocket, I'm sure they'll be happy to give us other hatch variants. | |
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Replying to: dgs4 (May 02, 2009 7:50 pm) The Escort was on the right track at least, and you are aware that the Masda3 is a Mazda-tuned Ford Focus, which I notice you conveniently left off the list? Well, the Focus is and has been one of the better small cars available here, and certainly the best domestic one. The fact that they already proved they could get their act together on that one gives me hope for the Fiesta.
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| Looking at buying our 3rd car as a pure commuter car - and Fiesta would be great! Trying to buy American, but Fit/Rabbit/Mazda3 are the only ones that meet my pricepoint. No current Ford/GM/Chevy even comes close. Frustrating. | |
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Replying to: bpizzuti (May 03, 2009 2:35 am) Given their recent track record, Ford is likely to soften and decontent the Fiesta before it arrives in the US. In fact, in order to be priced competitively it will almost have to lose significant features. Otherwise it could end up like the Saturn Astra, which sold horribly.
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Replying to: feelander (May 06, 2009 8:02 am) here's what happened: Ford Europe designed a small car called the Focus, and they brought it to the US. A couple of years later, Ford Europe released an updated Focus, with an updated version of the platform. Mazda used that platform to base the Mazda3 off of. Ford USA didn't pick up the updated Focus from the EU, instead taking the one they'd already gotten from them and "refreshing" it. basically, in programming parlance, our current Focus and the current Mazda3 are different forks off of the same root code. The problem at the time was that they didn't automatically design things to be market-universal, so there had to be slight modifications to sell a Euro vehicle in the US. Supposedly, they're now keeping that sort of thing in mind during the design phase, which should make it cheaper and easier to bring models across borders and oceans. The Fiesta will likely be our first indicator as far as how good of a job they did in designing vehicles from the start to cross borders. Incidentally, the Fit is NOT prices competitively (it's expensive), and still sells well. Fiesta is probably targeting Fit buyers among others. |
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Replying to: feelander (May 06, 2009 8:02 am) Sadly, Suzuki wouldn't give me a time-line on the Swift at all, they just sent me a t-shirt, which was cool, and asked me to look harder at the SX4. I looked harder, liked it a bit, but got a Hyundai Accent SE hatch, which I am love with. It's the most likable and fun of the little hatches available stateside....IMO. I really liked the Fiesta, but also wonder what version we will see, and when we will see it. I hope it's worth the wait, for those who decided to wait. |
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To Ford: I will NOT be thankful I was offered the 5 door.Fiesta as well as the sedan . Its 3 door or No door for me. First time in a decade I am seriously considering an American car and the Fiesta ( or Ka ) are truly in consideration .....but if they dont have the bottom line basic common sense to intro a 3 door hatch in a sport version I dont even know what to think as they are then farther lost than I can imagine. ST or RS or whatever you want to call it but dont soften it .....do the opposite and firm it up. 3 door,16 or 17 wheels/tires,stiff suspension,LSD, DOHC 1.6 or 1.7, direct injection, 6spd ,full gauges,sport exhaust,sport seats,bright colors....under 20k
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i had a chance to ride in a new spanish built ford fiesta hatchback in singapore. we were five adults for a quick restaurant to home 20 min ride, so this is an incomplete impression. walk around: looks nice. seats: decent. room: i had my front seat pulled up but still had knee room, the pax behind me was ok, but three pax in back was one too many. trunk: a bit smaller than a versa hatch. noise: fine. fit/finish: fine. power: enough pep with this full load for city. fiesta is yet another example of why detroit's big3 are in trouble. they build decent cars (e.g. fiesta, focus, opels, etc) for overseas markets and either dumb them down or dont import them at all into u.s. the fiesta is a decent ride, certainly competitive with the yaris hatch, a bit smaller than the versa hatch, but felt more planted than the versa, which is a comfy, rolling easy chair. i would like to try a suzuki swift next. jeff, from jakarta |
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