America Can not Be Great Again Without the Fiesta ST

[CanadianGuy]

Fun article to read and I do share the emotion of the author. I for one will be driving my FiST into the ground and likely will try to keep it on the road for far longer than other vehicles I have owned. And that means beating my 1991 Jimmy that had 600k km on the stock engine. Read and enjoy!

http://www.thetruthaboutcars.com/20...ca-cant-be-great-again-without-the-fiesta-st/

 

[CanadianGuy]

And now people can read the article. Seems putting an ' in the post tittle is not the best thing.

 

[BRGT350]

Wonderful article and great to find somebody penning some of my exact thoughts. Just last weekend my dad asked what I will replace my Fiesta ST with when it is time. My plan was to buy the Focus RS I ordered for my dad when grows tired of it in a few years. Of course after 2 weeks of ownership has decided he won't part with the car and it will stay in his collection. So, crossing off his RS, I am left with the sad realization that the Fiesta ST may be my last Ford. The company no longer wants to be a car company, but rather a mobility company, and by mobility they mean trucks, crossovers, Mustangs, and things that don't need a driver. Oddly, this is exactly where I was in 1999 when Ford decided that cars suck and everybody needs a bigger truck. However, they somehow slipped one of the best cars into the country. The original Focus was brilliant and I have been driving a FWD Ford hatchback since 2000. Mark Fields ruined the Focus when he had the hatchback scrapped, decided not avoid keeping it current like the one in Europe, moved production to Michigan, and turned the car into something barely suitable for a rental car. As CEO, he made sure the Fiesta was going to die under his command. I stood on stage with him in 2009 to announce the Fiesta and had hoped he had turned a corner on cars. Not the case at all. Will the new CEO do anything for cars? Probably not, and the market is such that the ground lost by stopping to promote the car lineup will not be recovered. The Fiesta is dead and the for all accounts, the car is dead in America.

 

[Waterfan]

The sad truth is the 4-door, manual, FiST is exactly the wrong kind of car for the US market:
1a. Hatchbacks, especially small ones, are perceived as starter cars for starving students or deplorables by any other names. "Non-deplorables" drive mid-sized sedans or hybrid hatchbacks.
1b. A 2-door "coupe-like" but less-practical version would have enhanced perception of sportiness, so of course it was not offered (2-door has superior side visibility and lighter weight too)
2a. Sporty cars are an ultra-niche in their own right, and while the FiST is the perfect combiniation of fun, affordable, sporty, practical, economical, it is simply not "sexy or powerful" enough to compete with any other car in the sporty segment.
2b. FWD cars are not perceived as sporty or performance-oriented in general
3. Gas is relatively cheap, most people looking for sporty cars are willing to trade off some mpg for perceived performance
4. Manual only car is an ultra-niche proposition in it's own right.
5. The suspension tuning is absolutely wrong for the mass market. It is not comfortable in the least under any circumstances (40-series tires only make it worse than it needed to be). Anyone still playing the "maybe a FiST" game up to this point will likely lose in the "Girlfriend/Wife Acceptance" round. (On the contrary, if there was one single thing that made me love the FiST it was the "perfect for my tastes" suspension tuning. VW Mk7 GTI was my frontrunner for a long time but it "needed" 3k+ suspension and wheels/tires upgrades to match the FiST driving feel. More features for less $, smaller, lighter, better mpg were icing on the cake)
5. Given all of the above, the price point must be extremely low. It's possible that Ford was making little to nothing on these "perfect" cars. And probably losing money on base Fiestas. Parts and labor are relatively cheap, so they probably couldn't make anything back through their service depts. Not to mention, a majority of FiST owners like to wrench their own cars at least some of the time (if not all the time)

As a reformed, lifelong VW fan, I would constantly lament the unavailability of the Polo GTi to the US market. Along the way, I learned and begrudgingly accepted why

The FiST is the strangest combination of "does everything exactly right for drivers while simultaneously doing everything exactly wrong for the market at-large".

/ramble off

 

[M-Sport fan]

Wonderful article and great to find somebody penning some of my exact thoughts. Just last weekend my dad asked what I will replace my Fiesta ST with when it is time. My plan was to buy the Focus RS I ordered for my dad when grows tired of it in a few years. Of course after 2 weeks of ownership has decided he won't part with the car and it will stay in his collection. So, crossing off his RS, I am left with the sad realization that the Fiesta ST may be my last Ford. The company no longer wants to be a car company, but rather a mobility company, and by mobility they mean trucks, crossovers, Mustangs, and things that don't need a driver. Oddly, this is exactly where I was in 1999 when Ford decided that cars suck and everybody needs a bigger truck. However, they somehow slipped one of the best cars into the country. The original Focus was brilliant and I have been driving a FWD Ford hatchback since 2000. Mark Fields ruined the Focus when he had the hatchback scrapped, decided not avoid keeping it current like the one in Europe, moved production to Michigan, and turned the car into something barely suitable for a rental car. As CEO, he made sure the Fiesta was going to die under his command. I stood on stage with him in 2009 to announce the Fiesta and had hoped he had turned a corner on cars. Not the case at all. Will the new CEO do anything for cars? Probably not, and the market is such that the ground lost by stopping to promote the car lineup will not be recovered. The Fiesta is dead and the for all accounts, the car is dead in America.

^^^EXACTLY!!
IF the late 90's/early 2000 NA Romeo-engined Cobra had not had the false power representation problems it was plagued with, I would have been driving that the last 16+ years instead of the LS1 Z28 I was driving immediately before getting into the FiST.

The day autonomous cars become the required 'norm', or even LAW, is the day I stop using a "car", and seeking public transportation, walking, or riding my road bike everywhere I need to go!!!!
(WHO the eff needs/wants all of the expense/upkeep/insurance/parking costs with NONE of the benefits of actually driving?!?!?!)

 

[rexdriver85]

Sigh. I've been trying to sell my FiST for the past month or so, and reading articles like this make it very difficult to even think about parting ways with it, which I am already dreading.

 

[Capri to ST]

Good article, thanks for posting. I fell down the rabbit hole, and read all the ones that preceded it too, and the guy just loves our cars.

 

[FLORIDAST]

Nice article, thanks for posting it!

 

[warhawk03]

Right in the feels. I just traded my Fiesta in on Monday. Lovely article.

 

[DaveG99]

Nice article. I dont think i could ever get rid of mine. Just too much fun for the money. Tires are cheap, hardly uses gas, cheap to mod, and most of all FUN! Its a minimalistic sports car. The only thing more fun for less money would be a sport bike. But i gave that crazy stuff up years ago.

 

[FLORIDAST]

Right in the feels. I just traded my Fiesta in on Monday. Lovely article.

What'd you end up getting?

 

[CB022481]

Sigh. I've been trying to sell my FiST for the past month or so, and reading articles like this make it very difficult to even think about parting ways with it, which I am already dreading.

wtf?

 

[rexdriver85]

wtf?

I know I know. I'll probably end up keeping it! Maybe. [emoji13]

 

[warhawk03]

What'd you end up getting?

Got a good deal on an RS. Was on the fence for a good 12 months about actually doing it. I don't even have the courage to look at the dealer's website to see what they're listing the Fiesta at. Just hoping it goes to someone who will enjoy it.

 

[FLORIDAST]

Got a good deal on an RS. Was on the fence for a good 12 months about actually doing it. I don't even have the courage to look at the dealer's website to see what they're listing the Fiesta at. Just hoping it goes to someone who will enjoy it.

Cool, good choice. Did you see the new limited RS coming out soon?

 

[M-Sport fan]

Got a good deal on an RS. Was on the fence for a good 12 months about actually doing it. I don't even have the courage to look at the dealer's website to see what they're listing the Fiesta at. Just hoping it goes to someone who will enjoy it.

One of the very few rides I would be willing to trade my FiST for, IF I had the coin to do so, despite so many swearing up and down that it is a lesser car than our little rockets.

The IDEAL for me would be to have an RS, a lightly modded FiST, and then a domestic V8 muscle/pony/supercar like a GT350R, or C7 GS/Z06 all in the same stable, but I am NOT Bill Gates, so that ain't never happening.

 

[Waterfan]

One of the very few rides I would be willing to trade my FiST for, IF I had the coin to do so, despite so many swearing up and down that [the RS] is a lesser car than our little rockets.

RS is not "lesser" than FiST, so much as it is "not 2x more fun for 2x the price".

Current and dearly departing FiST is/was the fun/performance value choice of a generation (not as revolutionary as, but maybe as "perfect" as Mk1/2 VW GTI?). My existing plan to "drive it until the wheels fall off" is only reinforced by future unavailability in US. (Fingers crossed for spare parts availability in the future)

 

[M-Sport fan]

RS is not "lesser" than FiST, so much as it is "not 2x more fun for 2x the price".

Current and dearly departing FiST is/was the fun/performance value choice of a generation (not as revolutionary as, but maybe as "perfect" as Mk1/2 VW GTI?). My existing plan to "drive it until the wheels fall off" is only reinforced by future unavailability in US. (Fingers crossed for spare parts availability in the future)

OK, correct, and I will agree to (ALL OF) that above.

I actually had an '83 GTI, bought new, and yes, it was quite 'tossable' (quick ratio, DIRECT, and MANUAL steering!), but not quite up to the pure performance standard of this car, even though I installed Koni Sports, rear sway bar, and Yoko A008s on it.

 

[warhawk03]

Cool, good choice. Did you see the new limited RS coming out soon?

Yes! Very cool to see that they're putting the Quaife in from the factory.

 

[warhawk03]

One of the very few rides I would be willing to trade my FiST for, IF I had the coin to do so, despite so many swearing up and down that it is a lesser car than our little rockets.

The IDEAL for me would be to have an RS, a lightly modded FiST, and then a domestic V8 muscle/pony/supercar like a GT350R, or C7 GS/Z06 all in the same stable, but I am NOT Bill Gates, so that ain't never happening.

Haha! It's funny, I told my wife I would only trade the Fiesta ST for a Focus RS. Now with a Focus RS, I told her "Don't worry hun, I'll only trade this for an Escort RS Cosworth."