Since the Ford Fiesta first rocked up onto the car market back in 1976 it has proven to be one of the biggest success stories of the industry. For the past few decades, the Fiesta has been consistently near or at the top of Britain’s new car sales chart.
With so many Fiestas on UK roads nowadays, you might assume that everything fascinating about this car is already common knowledge. There are some curious things about the Fiesta, however, which might have passed you by.
Here’s five facts you probably didn’t know about the Ford Fiesta.
General Motors helped give the Ford Fiesta its name
Fiesta is one of the most recognisable car names in many countries, especially Britain. But where did the name actually come from? Funnily enough, from a major competitor.
Before Ford launched its first generation Fiesta, the supermini was being developed under the project name ‘Bobcat’. While this car was being developed, General Motors – a fellow American car company and huge rival to Ford – had ownership over the name Fiesta.
However, GM ended up offering the Fiesta name to Ford before its small car was publicly revealed. Ford didn’t even have to pay anything for it.
The Ford boss of the time, Henry Ford II liked the Fiesta name because Ford had just set up an all-new factory in Spain and Fiesta is the Spanish word for party.
Whether the Fiesta would be as popular as it is today if it had a different name is hard to say. But we do find it kind of funny imaging millions of Brits saying they go to work in a Bobcat.
Ex-Fiesta owners include Lara Croft (sort of)
While held in high regard by many, it’s fair to say the Ford Fiesta doesn’t exactly scream the word ‘fame’. Nevertheless, with so many of them on the roads its inevitable someone Fiestas would end up in the hands of certain celebrities at some stage.
The famous owner list isn’t massive but does include Nell McAndrew, who entered public attention when she became the official model for the Lara Croft game franchise during the nineties.
The retired cricketer and former Strictly Come Dancing champion, Mark Ramprakash, is another famous former Fiesta driver. When Ford introduced the sixth generation Fiesta in 2008, Ramprakash partook in the car’s UK launch by doing a tango dance – with a woman, not the car, sadly.
There are convertible Fiestas out there
Ford have done small convertible cars before (remember the StreetKa?) but the existence of the Fiesta convertible can allude many people. Such a thing has been made before though, albeit by a third party.
Back in the eighties, the car coachbuilder firm, Crayford Engineering, were looking for a couple of new projects. One of these new projects saw a team convert the first-generation Fiesta hatchback into a convertible.
Named the Fiesta Fly, it has been reported that around thirty convertibles based on the first-gen Fiesta were built. It’s also believed that two models based on the second-generation Fiesta were made before the whole project got sold to Bournemouth-based coachbuilders, F. English.
There was a plan from F. English to build and sell 200 Fiesta Flys a year, but this idea got abandoned because of costs before it could be properly realised. The manufacturing rights got sold on again and it has been passed around to different companies across Europe but has ultimately gone quiet.
Interestingly, a small group of enthusiasts, the Crayford Convertible Car Club, claims to have registered over 80 Fiesta Flys and suggests as many as 200 could still be undiscovered. Even if you happen to see one, however, it could be a fake, something which you can apparently work out if the model has a roll bar.
The most expensive Fiesta around costs about £400,000
When you read the statement above, you may be wondering how on earth a Ford Fiesta could cost so much. After all, a new, regular Ford Fiesta nowadays has a price range starting at about £10,000 and the Fiesta ST hot hatch starts from about £17,500.
But then there’s the Ford Fiesta RS WRC, which is fully road-legal but most famous for tearing its way through gravel routes in rallying’s most prestigious championship. Getting an exact price on a Fiesta World Rally car is tricky, but we do get some indication from Malcolm Wilson, the head of M-Sport – the biggest rally team to use the Fiesta.
When one of the team’s Fiesta rally cars was burnt into an unsalvageable mess in a freak incident during the 2014 Rally of Italy, Wilson commented on the cost of such a loss. He said: “The financial implications to replace it are huge. You’re looking in excess of £400,000 and we don’t insure the rally cars, so that’s a big hit.”
Jeremy Irons doesn’t like the Ford Fiesta
Yes, you read that correctly. You’re probably wondering what would possess a classically trained actor and Oscar winner to take a swipe at the humble Ford Fiesta.
Well, back in early 2013, Jeremy Irons did an interview in America to promote a show of his, Shakespeare Uncovered, which was being shown on the channel PBS. This same US channel was already showing Downtown Abbey, a show that had already taken America by storm and could be considered a rival to Irons’ effort.
While trying to explain why his show would be the better one to watch, Irons compared Downtown Abbey to a Ford Fiesta and Shakespeare to an Aston Martin. Okay, so Jeremy may not explicitly hate the Fiesta, but the comparison he made here undoubtedly undermines the Ford. Was it uncalled for? Ford clearly thought so.
Just a day after Jeremy’s quotes emerged, the manufacturer posted an online video as a direct response to him. In the video, which you can see below, a man who calls himself the Bard of Ford explains in Shakespearean fashion why the actor doth protest too much.
