The Party’s Over – Despedida ‘Fiesta’

On 31st October 2003, British Airways Concorde G-BOAC landed for the last time at Manchester airport where she now resides in a purpose-built display hangar. I took my two young sons to see the event which, with the retirement of all her sister aircraft, marked the end of an era in transportation; an era when mass supersonic flight at Mach 2 was accessible to ‘ordinary’ flyers. It was a very sad day and a day when I saw grown men with tears in their eyes.

G-BOAC Final Landing at Manchester 31.10.2003 (source: author)

On 26 October 2022 a similarly sad event was announced. Not quite the teary-eyed, lumpy-throat kind of sad that Concorde elicited, but almost definitely the end of another era of transport. Ford announced that it was discontinuing the Fiesta model in 2023 after 47 years and eight generations. It also quietly announced the end of production of the seven-seater people carriers ‘S-Max’ and ‘Galaxy’, but it was the Fiesta that stole the news limelight, mainly due to its longevity and popularity.

Most people have either owned a Ford Fiesta or are one or two degrees of separation from someone who has. My wife and sons have owned them in the past and my wife’s sister currently drives a Mk 8. The Fiesta is the ubiquitous ‘B–Segment’ supermini. Whenever I am trying to describe car ‘size categories’ to non-car acquaintances Fords tend to be my yardstick so ‘Fiesta-sized’ is the touchstone of familiarity for the B-segment.?

Back in the early 1970s three-box cars were the most common type but were not really ‘small’ and nearly all had longitudinal engines and rear wheel drive. Only the Issigonis-designed Austin Maxi (big brother to the mini) provided hatchback versatility with transverse front wheel drive.

The Ford Fiesta arrived in 1976 as Ford’s first transverse front wheel drive car for Europe alongside a flurry of similarly-sized ‘supermini’ hatchback competitors including the Volkswagen Polo, Vauxhall Chevette (still rear-wheel-drive) and Renault 5. I really wanted a Fiesta. But back then superminis were in demand and Fiesta prices high, even in the used car market, so I ran a four door Mk2 Escort.?

I loved the Mk 1 Fiesta for its compact size, good visibility, and neat, unfussy styling. But it would be 1988 before I bought a red Mk1 Fiesta 1.1L for my wife as a family runabout while I was away at the ‘Lanch’ studying Transportation Design. It’s hard to believe that such a small vehicle could even be a family car, but child seats and buggies were much smaller and lighter back then (even though kids weren’t). SUVs didn’t exist and most parents actually walked their children to the local school anyway. The Euro NCAP arms race hadn’t yet started, so all cars were lighter and easy to see out of even if you were a 2.5th percentile female (sub 5ft tall in real money).

My wife’s Fiesta was actually stolen from a college car park a couple of years later on a horrible rainy night while she was doing an evening class. She was bereft…until it was returned to exactly the same parking space a week later with a nearly empty fuel tank and screwdriver-jemmied ignition lock. We suspected it had been nicked by some day-release apprentice mechanics from the local Tech who didn’t want to get wet going home. They must only have seen the child seat in the rear afterwards and had a bout of conscience, or they just drove it back because it was raining again on college day seven days later. Anyway, one replacement ignition lock and a new-fangled ‘StopLock’ from Halfords to militate against further larceny and we were good to go for another five years. Great little car.

Mk 1 Fiesta L, almost identical to my wife’s car (source: Daily Mail)

Our family’s next Fiesta was first owned by my elder son. It was an immaculate and well-specified 2001 five-door Fiesta Flight in bright silver bought in about 2008 with just 15000 miles from one previous owner. It still resides with my younger son as a second-car runabout. Last year it needed a bit of MOT welding and when I was picking it up the mechanic said, “Good car that. You know which engine it has don’t you?” My blank expression said I didn’t. “It’s a 1.3 Endura E”, he continued.

To cut a long story short it seems the auto trade rates these old chain-driven pushrod motors as a bit clattery but virtually unbreakable (unlike its newly-developed belt-driven contemporary, the Zetec 1.25) and it was often used in Ford vans apparently. The guy made it sound like it could run on distilled bin juice without harm (though we've always stuck to premium unleaded just to be sure). I’ve driven the car many times and it still has all the Fiesta attributes of good visibility and light controls. And it’s easy to park. No sensors necessary.

2001 Ford Fiesta Flight – with ‘legendary’ 1.3 Endura E (source: Author)

I digress.

On a more serious note, one of the reasons cited for the demise of the Fiesta is the low profitability of small cars and the popularity of the SUV. Which to me is a portent that car makers are inexorably going to be putting profits before the planet over the next few years. It's ironic that the electric vehicles give us an opportunity to make creatively-packaged, more efficient and cleaner small cars but increasing technological complexity may have the opposite effect. Car makers may prefer to cull small cars in favour of unnecessarily larger products which generate more profits. However these will use more energy and materials to produce per car, and more fuel (including electricity) during its life.?

For years cars have also become more aerodynamically efficient which manufacturers promote by quoting drag coefficients or ‘Cd’. However, Cd just gives an indication of the aerodynamic slipperiness of the shape. It is meaningless until you factor in the cross-sectional area facing the direction of airflow to give CdA. In very simple terms two cars of similar length may be quoted with identical ‘Cd’ but the one with a bigger cross-section ‘A’ will generate more drag force.

Similar Cd but larger CdA equals greater drag force (source: dividshub.net /history.com)

Many new electric cars seem to be crossovers, that are inherently taller than conventional hatchbacks in the same segment creating a bigger ‘frontal area’ for the same usable interior space. Overcoming higher drag force uses more fuel and even a small percentage increase can be substantial spread over the large number of cars produced and the operational life of each car.

Vehicle systems have also become more complex and expensive to develop (especially safety systems) and these also compete for package space and add weight. Features that used to be the preserve of larger cars with higher profit margins have tumbled down to smaller bread-and butter products. And yet a lot of these features now involve electronic systems where development costs are high but manufacturing cost low when amortised over the far larger volumes in which small cars are usually produced.?

The problem with any attempt to ‘lightweight’ is that the market now sees value in size. One of the surprising successes of the last ten years was the original B-segment Nissan Juke crossover SUV which, despite quirky styling, seemed to rapidly find popularity among middle-aged women in particular. Its designer (a Coventry graduate and now Nissan Design VP) was giving a ‘Visiting Lecturer’ talk at the University a few years back and was asked why he thought this was so. His answer was that customers perceived they were getting more for their money by comparison with other cars on a similar price point, usually B-segment hatchbacks like the Ford Fiesta and Nissan’s own Micra. It’s hard to argue with that logic.

Ironically, given the increasingly poor state of the roads in our cities which will become worse as the UK seems to be heading into a new period of public spending austerity, a bit more ground clearance and higher profile tyres may also be seen as advantageous to preserve sophisticated suspension systems against potholes. (The alternative of course could be to ‘ruggedise’ existing car types for the changing conditions in the UK as some manufacturers have previously done for cars sold in developing countries - if only I was joking).

However, crossovers do not necessarily offer increased ground clearance or robust off-road performance. The majority are front-wheel rather than all-wheel drive and their big wheel arch apertures are often black graphics applied to the sheet metal to make the arches appear bigger without any actual increase in wheel articulation. SUVs and crossovers may offer a higher seating position which is better for access/egress but if the windscreen base also rises commensurately with the cabin floor and driver’s hip-point then smaller drivers get worse downward vision over the bonnet (hood) not better. The main advantage of a tall crossover body ‘style’ is that, in a short car, it creates room under the floor for batteries.

Guigiaro set the trend for tall-boy designs back in the early 80s with cars like the Fiat Uno and original Nissan Micra, by recognising cars could be made shorter if drivers sat more upright. If we must now add extra height to get batteries beneath the cabin it will be harder to disguise this additional height. In future we can expect lots of compact electric cars with the usual 'optical illusion' black sill panels and wheel arch surrounds. Cars with, shall we say, ‘chunky’ proportions.?

Which brings me neatly back to my comment about the Fiesta’s demise being the end of an era. As we move towards a world of electric vehicles with the impending 2030 ban on sales of new petrol and diesel cars in the UK, I am left wondering if we are about to see the complete demise of the B-segment supermini, as we know it. Like the ‘hatchback’ before it, the SUV car type has become a worldwide phenomenon and if a company the size of Ford has decided to abandon the best-selling Fiesta, then other big players must be watching closely and considering whether to follow the lead from relatively light and space-efficient superminis to B-segment SUV crossovers with heavier electric drivetrain. The batteries have to go somewhere and that is usually under the floor.

I'm sure the Fiesta's electric successor will be great looking car but it won't really be a 'supermini' anymore. As a lifelong fan of small, efficient cars, I really hope I am wrong, and the lean and agile B-segment supermini continues to thrive in some guise.?But it seems like this is no longer what today's car buyers want.

Sadly, after 47 years the party will soon be over at Ford. Farewell Fiesta. It was fun while it lasted.

. RIP Ford Fiesta .

. 1976 - 2023 .