Ford Fiesta

[vickster]

My first car was an E reg Fiesta Festival which I had in my last year of uni and a year or two after (think I traded it in against my first and last brand new car a 97 P reg Punto)..
I also partly learned to drive in The Red Devil, a Mk1 which my brother inherited from our grandmother, he had in his final year of poly IIRC

 

[tyred]

It's time has passed I suppose. When it was originally introduced there was a large market for inexpensie runabouts whereas today most people need an enormous tank of an SUV to take little Jimmy half a mile to school.

 

[cookiemonster]

Like many, I passed my test in a Fiesta. One of the newer models.

 

[mustang1]

Had a "fish face" one, can't recall what year it was but it was a hoot to drive! A 1.25 litre 4 cylinder engine, suspension was great; for such a small car, it rode very comfortable and also had reasonably sporty handling.

 

[presta]

My father's last car was a Fiesta 1.1 Popular Plus, a 1984 beige one. Fairly basic, but it was OK. When I was a student I went for a trip round Dagenham, at the time they were making the Mk1s.

 

[PeteXXX]

 

[bonzobanana]

Out done by both economy brands like Dacia and upmarket brands like VW.

Ford Fiesta is often reviewed well above Volkswagen Polo for driving dynamics and you can often get them for considerably less and still a very reliable car with affordable repairs and servicing. It's a class of car that is typically very reliable as less complicated electrically and simpler engines. Most brands are pretty decent for this size of cars. It's when you go up to the more luxurious stuff with big complicated engines and loads of gadgets reliability drops to nothing.

https://web.archive.org/web/20210423135907/https://www.reliabilityindex.com/reliability/search/80

 

[Salad Dodger]

I had a mark 1, a 1.1S that was the first half way decent car I'd ever owned. It was a nice enough little car, but it did crack a cylinder head which my mate replaced for me.
Traded it in against my first ever brand new car. A diamond White XR2 mark 1 which was a brilliant car, if a bit under geared on the motorway.
I px'd it for a brand new XR2 in black. Terrible colour choice on my part. It had the normally aspirated XR3 engine and 5 speed gearbox. A better car on motorways, but lacking the brash performance of the old pushrod engined Mark 1.

If I ever won the lottery, I would seek out a good Mark 1 XR2, but it would have to be diamond White with factory sunroof.....

 

[T4tomo]

That's quite sad, it's been around since 1976, which is not all, but the majority of my years on earth to date. Also the the first car I bought was a G reg Fiesta.

I also recall being thrown the keys of my sisters boyfriends XR2 as a recently test passed 17 year old as it was blocking another car in, with the words feel free to take it a couple of miles to turn it around!!

 

[fossyant]

I was an Escort man - had 2 - Mk2 1.3 GL then a Mk3 1.6 Ghia

 

[Mike_P]

My 63 reg has been problem free until this year when the front axle linkage broke (suspect assisted by a pothole) and then the air con stopped working through corrosion of the main air con unit. The seal around the drivers door opening started fraying and I ordered a replacement from Ford only to find it was the one that fitted on the door itself
They said they would refund within 10 days of its receipt back but that passed ages ago and it looks like becoming an official PayPal complaint next week. Local repair garage sourced the part only originally to be supplied with that for the door itself but yesterday did fit the right one.

 

[SpokeyDokey]

Over the years they have morphed from cute to genuinely hideous.

Had a blue XR2 as an early company car a zillion years ago - fun to drive but really 'tinny'.

Ford have a design problem - how can the same design studio come up with a really good looking car like the Focus ST's and the polar opposite - the comedic looking Ecosport?

 

[lazybloke]

New cars were still a huge thing when I was a kid, which is why I still remember a classmate arriving at school one morning in his Mum's brand new T-plate Fiesta; Sept 1978.

A lot of kids were jealous that I used to arrive on the back of a motorbike, but I just wanted to be in that car.

 

[SpokeyDokey]

New cars were still a huge thing when I was a kid, which is why I still remember a classmate arriving at school one morning in his Mum's brand new T-plate Fiesta; Sept 1978.

A lot of kids were jealous that I used to arrive on the back of a motorbike, but I just wanted to be in that car.

I remember when any car was a big thing.

Early 60's when I was 5 or 6 we lived on a longish crescent of some 250 houses.

For many a year there were only 2 or 3 cars in residence.

The road was us kid's football pitch. 😁

 

[wafter]

When I was a student I had an early Mk1 1.1L in Cosmos blue metallic with chrome trim. Absolutely loved that car - gutless but its 4sp box was geared low so it revved well and was willing. Never let me down and had bags of charisma too; really wish I'd kept it but it got nicked by a local smackhead, recovered and sold in favour of the Mk2 Golf Gti I'd replaced it with (also a great car and of course on paper better in every way).

Made me sad to look back at these photos... a reminder of when life was a lot happier and more hopeful.

Sorry that the fester's been killed off by demand for grotty soft roaders