SA Motor New Car Review – Ford Fiesta Ghia

Reviewer: Mark Borlace – RAA
Date: June 2004

Power: 74kW @ 6,000 rpm
Torque: 146Nm @ 4,000rpm
Weight to power: 14.6 kg/kW
Price as tested: $21,490
Fuel Consumption: 7.7 l/ 100km

Buyers in this very competitive small car market look for the quality but have a keen eye on price so to be successful it has to be good value for money.

The new Ford Fiesta may again make Ford competitive in this part of the market because they have not had any thing to match the Toyota Echo or Holden Barina since they stopped selling the Festiva a couple of years ago.

The Fiesta range starts with the 3 door LX model at $14,490, but once you add air-conditioning, automatic transmission and ABS its price jusy $1,000 below the top end of the range, as the 5 door Ghia with manual transmission is $21,490. The larger Ford Focus starts in this price bracket and it Festiva may pull sales off of its larger sibling.

The styling of the German build Fiesta, whether it is the 3 or 5 door versions is obviously European, inside and out.

The incorporation of the tail lights high up in the rear C pillar is becoming popular with small car designers as it also increase the visibility of the tail and brakes lights to traffic further behind than just the car that is immediately following.

Inside the Fiesta has a comfortable feel of spaciousness for a small car, as there is good headroom.

The seats are firm and flat and very much in the European style of seating which although may feel too firm at first are actually quite comfortable for longer trips.

Fiesta’s dash is well designed and easy-to-use as the large control dials are easy to reach, however, the LCD read outs for the fuel and temperature gauges are harder to read and it would it be nice to see them made bolder easier to read.

Also the Fiesta has good, usable boot space for a small car.

Buyers will need to be aware that the fiesta comes with the space saver tyre, which is unfortunate, because the spare wheel well is capable of housing a conventional spare wheel.

Dual airbags is standard across the Fiesta range however side curtain and thorax airbags are available in the Ghia model but only as an option.

The performance of the 1.6 litre, 4 cylinder, 16 valve Duratec engine is one of its features.

Beyond 2000 rpm it is a very lively and useable engine and when driven on some steeper sections of the Adelaide Hills the five-speed manual gearbox was well matched to make maximum use of the 74kW engine

And on winding sections of these same roads the Ford Fiesta handled well as its tight little body supported the suspension package.

Back in the city the Fiesta’s turning circle of less than 10 metres made it easy to manoeuvre in narrow city streets and car parks.

On test the fuel consumption was7.7 l/100kms and its intelligent engine management system will allow Fiesta either unleaded or if premium unleaded fuel is used it will adjust to get better performance out of the engine.

The Fiesta is a good package that will give Ford a chance of regaining a real presence on this part of the market.