Ford has been teasing us with a US-bound Fiesta for years, and the Blue Oval has only said that the well-executed B-car would be built in North America. With time to start producing Fiestas running short, Ford appears ready to publicly announce where the vehicle will be built, and it looks like the Fiesta will be made south of the border. The extremely low cost of labor in Mexico makes building inexpensive economy cars there a no-brainer, and Ford's Cuatitlan plant already builds the current Euro Fiesta and a Fiesta-based vehicle for the Mexico/Brazil markets.
The Fiesta is scheduled to appear Stateside by 2010, but with the radical shift towards smaller, more efficient vehicles, we wouldn't be surprised if Ford bumped up that timeline.
Until recently, Ford had only planned to sell the new Fiesta small car as a sedan in the US market. Judging from the reaction of readers in the comments here when we showed photos of the production version of the car, which is based on the Verve concept, most people disagreed. The vast majority of commenters chiming in said that they wanted the stylish little hatchback. Apparently, they aren't alone. When the Verve sedan concept appeared at the Detroit Auto Show, it was supposed to be shown alone. A last-minute change of plans was prompted by new Ford marketing chief, Jim Farley, who insisted that the original three-door hatchback concept from the Frankfurt show be displayed as well. The hatchback concept was on a European tour and was detoured for a stateside visit to judge reaction from American showgoers. It now looks like there is indeed a very good chance that the hatchback will be offered to US drivers in addition to the sedan.
Towards the end of 2003, Ford unveiled the Freestar. It was a lousy minivan, and its name wasn't much better. From there the f-bombs started pouring in with the Freestyle, Five Hundred, and Fusion. Ford had a Shakespearean stranglehold on alliteration, but outside of the decent success of the Fusion, Ford's effed-up naming convention brought little name recognition to the Blue Oval's car lineup. When Allan Mulally came to town, he scrubbed the Freestyle and Five Hundred names for the much more recognizable and respected Taurus and Taurus X, but unfortunately the basic shape of the family haulers didn't change enough for customers to want them.
Detroit News Columnist Daniel Howes accurately points out that Ford is back to effing up the names of its vehicles. The Flex arrives this summer, and the Fiesta arrives in 2010. The News says Ford marketing head Jim Farley questioned why the Flex name would adorn Ford's full-size crossover, but even the ex-Toyota wunderkind is unable or unwilling to lose the F. We don't understand the fixation Ford has with the sixth letter of the alphabet. The Dearborn automaker's two most successful cars of the past 40 years are the Taurus and Mustang, both of which are decidedly sans F. As a matter of fact, the Camry, Civic, Accord, Impala, and Malibu are all alliteration-free. Sure, if the Flex and Fiesta are great products they'll sell no matter what they're called, but we'd like for Ford to give us an effing break.
With two and a half weeks to go before the Geneva Motor Show, Ford has finally released details on the production version of its new global small car. After the Verve concept debuted at the Frankfurt Motor Show last September, the speculation began about what it'd be called when it arrived in showrooms. Ford's marketing team decided that more than three decades of brand equity was too much to throw away, so this car will be called the Fiesta everywhere in the world that it's sold, including the United States. US fans probably shouldn't get too attached to the 3-door hatchback shown above, though, as it's all but certain that we'll be getting a four-door sedan instead.
As spy photos in recent months have indicated, the production Fiesta stays remarkably true to the Verve concept. Aside from some detailing of the light clusters and framed side glass replacing the concept's flush glazing, the production car is virtually identical to the concept on the outside. This good news continues when you open the door, as the basic interior design is the same as the concept's, but with slightly less flashy-looking switchgear. Underhood, the Fiesta gets a range of five gasoline and diesel-fueled four-cylinder engines. Like the new Mazda2 with which it shares its architecture, the Fiesta is the same size as the car it's replacing, but high-strength steels allow it to be lighter. Production kicks off this fall in Cologne, Germany, to be followed by a second assembly plant in Spain. An Asian facility will be announced at the Beijing show in April, while a site for North American models will be announced later. We have bemoaned the dearth of small car choices here in the US and vilified Ford for keeping its Euro offerings away from us for a long time here at Autoblog. While we still have a bit longer to wait, the emergence of the new production Fiesta is reason to be very enthused. Put simply, it's exactly what we've been asking for. And it's coming.
Ford's European-developed Verve will go on sale in the States sometime in 2010, aimed to capture some of the burgeoning small car market. Making money on small cars is always the sticking point when talk turns to subcompacts, and Ford's eyeing Mexico as the production location for the Verve. The Detroit Free Press has spoken with insiders who concur that while it'd be tough to build the Verve in the United States, Cuautitlan, Mexico makes more sense.
US automakers have been building cars in Mexico for years. The wages are lower, OEM suppliers are following the car companies across the border, and the government is happy to deal. Mexico is also ideally positioned to send cars north to the US and Canada, or move vehicles down to South American markets. Brazil has also been mentioned as a potential production location, but that doesn't seem as practical as Mexico, according to the Freep's moles. One thing is for sure, when the Verve arrives, there'll finally be some stylish Ford cars to buy here in the U.S.
Ford's Verve Sedan concept rappelled to the ground in a smoky haze here in Detroit and the four-door concept proved to be a bit more squat, and less dynamic, in person. The Kinetic design language melds well with the compact sedan, looking more like a Mondeo at 2/3rds scale, which isn't a bad thing. But we're hoping for something a bit more sporting (like it's little brother that ran around the stage) and the Verve didn't quite deliver.
The rise in gas prices has increased demand for smaller, more fuel efficient cars in the American market, a call to which Ford has so far only paid lip service. The debut of the 2008 Focus at last year's Detroit Auto Show following the debut of several recent European market models like the Mondeo also caused people to call on Ford to bring its European Kinetic design to the U.S. Ford has finally responded on both counts, or at least it will for 2010 when the production version of this concept finally goes on sale here.
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The Old Grey Lady has officially kicked off the Detroit Auto Show 24 hours early, and they brought some party favors for all their readers to boot. The New York Times' Automobiles section has a Detroit preview article (dated 1/13, incidentally) in its feature spot. No longer under wraps are the 2009 Dodge Ram, 2009 Ford F-150 Platinum, Mitsubishi Concept-RA, Ford Verve sedan concept, and the Fisker plug-in luxo-hybrid, as all are featured prominently in the piece's accompanying new vehicle gallery.more ...
While most enthusiasts look to the Focus RS as the definitive forbidden fruit from Ford, the Fiesta stands as another product in the compact arena that will do wonders for Ford in the U.S. when it arrives here, possibly as the Verve, in the near future. Ford is upping the ante abroad, however, with help from Roush, owners of the Mountune Racing brand over there, by offering staged performance packages for the Fiesta ST that boost output while carrying a warranty of up to three years or 36,000 miles.
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Although we saw versions strongly camouflaged of the replacement of the fiesta of Ford during several months, it was only it has been two weeks that we obtained our first official glance with the concept of Ford Verve. Now, an attentive photographer controlled with the tear a projectile of what seems to be the model of series in a workshop some share by a barrier of chain-bond and a reflective window.
The new image shows a four-door version which looks at remarkably close to the concept to the majority of the regards. The shape of the headlights, the shock absorbers and the rear lights seem almost identical. There is perhaps slightly less upsweep in the line of conveyors on this version, but the spot of glances of rest above. The model of series of Verve/de fiesta if next the March beginning in Geneva with European sales giving a kick to far soon then. North America will obtain new small Ford for 2009.
