First launched in 1976, the Fiesta has led the small car segment in the UK for 27 of the 37 years and has been Britain’s best-selling car since 2009 when it overtook the Ford Focus. This month it surpassed the historic record of the Ford Escort which sold 4,105,961 in the 32 years it was on sale in the UK from 1968 through to 2000.
Ford has added its cherished “FMC1” registration to a Fiesta destined for Scotland for the Commonwealth Games to mark the UK favourite’s landmark achievement. Netball competitor Sasha Corbin, one of Ford’s athlete ambassadors, chose a Ford Fiesta for the Games – one of the 1,120 Fords supporting the event in Scotland this month.
Mark Ovenden, Ford Britain chairman and managing director, said: “The Ford Fiesta has gone from strength to strength and today’s car combines style, value, driving dynamics and remarkable technologies such as the multi-award-winning 1.0-litre EcoBoost engine. It continues to outsell its nearest retail competitor by more than two to one – and that really tells the story of this extraordinary car.”
UK-based engineers at Ford’s research and development centre at Dunton, in Essex, and at Ford’s Dagenham Diesel Centre, in East London, develop all powertrains for the Ford Fiesta. Dunton Technical Centre is home to Ford’s latest technical masterpiece – the EcoBoost range, including the 1.0-litre named International Engine of the Year for an unprecedented third consecutive year. The 1.6-litre EcoBoost engine that powers the hot Fiesta ST is manufactured at the Bridgend Engine Plant, South Wales.
Dagenham Diesel Centre specialises in the engineering and production of high-tech, low CO2 diesel engines for virtually all of Ford’s line-up of cars and commercial vehicles, across Europe and beyond, including the new 1.5-litre TDCi diesel for Fiesta.
Technical progress since the original Fiesta was introduced is a step-change. For example, it would now take more than 80 modern-day Fiestas to generate the NOx emissions of a single 1976 Mk1 model. This first-generation Fiesta, with the 46PS four-cylinder 950cc petrol engine, weighed around 800kg and achieved 37.7mpg, with CO2 emissions of almost 150g/km. Today’s fully-equipped model, with the 1.0-litre 100PS EcoBoost engine, weighs nearly 1,100kg, yet boasts a combined fuel economy of 65.7mpg and just 99g/km CO2 emissions.
More than 40 per cent of Fiesta buyers in the UK today choose the turbo-charged 1.0-litre EcoBoost engine, and almost 90 per cent opt for higher level specification – Zetec, Zetec S, Titanium, Titanium X and ST models with the Ford SYNC voice-controlled connectivity system.
