Goodbyes in the automotive industry are more shocking than welcome, especially in those models that leave a halo of longevity that seemed to make them infinite, but no. And just like the Beetle, the Meta or the One have already said goodbye, It’s time to cheer on the Ford Fiesta.
This was announced by the American company, through an exciting video in mid-2023 a car that has been around for 46 years, with more than 18 million units sold, will no longer be produced and whose Latin root name has an incredible history, not because of its origin, but because it was a gift that the Oval received from General Motors, no less. Your nemesis.
In truth, the farewell to the Fiesta had begun to take shape already in 2019, when the company decided to discontinue it in Latin America as part of the global restructuring of the brand that was drawn towards SUVs and pickups: it was produced in Brazil and It was the same year that it stopped being marketed in Argentina. At that time, only the factory in the German city of Cologne remained, where production had begun in 1976.
It starts with its seventh generation, the one that appeared in 2017 and whose last update took place in 2021. The replacement, which Ford I got it in the chestIt had already been revealed in the same video that was used to ignite the legend: it will be an electric variant of the Puma, one of the SUVs that the company has in its formation.
The farewell video has a metaphorical side that stains it with nostalgia. He is a grandfather who arrives just as his grandson goes to sleep, and he was waiting for her to read him a story. The book is called “Fiesta – Small family car”and in the reading the parable is established that the model made “for the people” must say goodbye because “his work is done”.
As reported, the latest Fiesta will enter the production line of the Cologne plant at the end of June 2023. After the demise of the Fiesta, the German plant will be transformed into the Ford Cologne Electrification Center, dedicated exclusively to the production of electric vehicles. It will be the end of 47 years of history, since 1976, a figure that makes it the second longest-lived model of the Oval, behind the Transit.
Ford Fiesta, the car with a happy name
Europe, along with Japan, was the center of rationality in the automotive industry. They explored so much how to save on costs and consumption that they even anticipated the oil crisis, which exploded in the early 1970s. In the Old World, Italy saw the birth of the Fiat 850 in the 1960s at the same time as the United States. United launched the Mustang. That small B-segment car was a more spacious option for the 600.
Small engines and space optimization was the motto of the new trend. US subsidiaries based in European countries have not had the same reaction, but they have certainly been at the forefront of the global evolution that has spread to other countries. That wave gave birth to one of the most successful models: the Ford Fiesta.
In the 1970s, Ford decided to take the field to compete in this emerging but growing segment. Fiat he already had the 127 (which in Argentina was known as 147) and Renault was focusing on the 5. Finally, after several projects, a prototype known as the Bobcat emerged, which would be the basis of the new Ford model.
The choice of the name was a real challenge. Amigo, Bambi, Bebe, Bolero, Cherie, Chico, Fiesta, Forito, Metro, Pony, Sierra and Tempo paraded without success. Bravo was the best option for the consensus reached, but Henry Ford II (grandson of the founder) fired them and opted for Fiesta.
And this is where an unexpected crossroads arises between the two Detroit giants. Fiesta was the name General Motors it was registered on an Oldsmobile model, a 1950s station wagon. The story goes that GM named Ford for free, when GM had Elliott M. Estes as president.
The first generation of the Fiesta was launched in 1976. It was 3.56 meters long and had a one-liter engine. It was initially produced in Valencia (Spain), Cologne (Germany) and Dagenham (England). It was a milestone for Ford as it was its first sedan bodied car and the first front-wheel drive car to be truly successful.
Already in 1979 the millionth unit left the factory, and the success that the car had had in Europe led Henry Ford II to put it on the US market between 1978 and 1980. At that time, the grandson of the company founder used it. in one the example of the Fiesta to undermine the president Jimmy Carter, who had said that “only the Japanese knew how to make small cars”. “The president and Congress are confused,” the executive boasted.
The presence of the Ford Fiesta in Argentina
Ford 2000 project. This was the name given to the industrial expansion phase of the company in the 1990s. In South America it was particularly important because it was a period in which Mercosur was starting to consolidate, with increasingly fluid exchanges between Argentina and Brazil., Two of the four partners (together with Paraguay and Uruguay) where the Detroit giant had factories in the subcontinent (there are also in Venezuela).
That plan led to the birth of the regional festival, the B-segment car that has always been related to the São Bernardo do Campo plant in São Paulo. With an initial investment of 850 million dollars, it was produced there from the arrival of the third generation of the model, in the mid-1990s, until 2019, when the company’s need to reduce costs led to the closure of the plant. which had been opened in 1967.
In ArgentinaFord was the last of the generalist brands to join the model car revolution. The Fiesta was introduced in December 1994 again as a product imported from Europe: it came from the Almussafes production plant, in the Valencian Community, where historically most of this model was produced worldwide.
Since in those years the tax burden on imports into Argentina had considerably eased, that Fiesta that crossed the Atlantic was a success in the first few months, so much so that he had periods in which he even drove sales in the local market. They were units of the end of the third generation.
Fans of the model claim, those who obviously have their own club in the country, that the Fiesta produced in Sao Paulo had another added value to the regional character of the model: the previous one, although it was successful in the short term when it was sold, was linked to the ‘Autolatina, the phase in which Ford associated with Volkswagen to share the plants. The fourth Fiesta arrived with slightly more rounded shapes (particularly marked in the falls of the trunk and tailgate, less aggressive than the previous one).
It was presented in Argentina in mid-1996. It had as a novelty in the region the incorporation of the 1.4 Zetec S 16 valve engine, advanced for its segment, available only for the top-of-the-range version, which at the time had a value of just under 18,000 pesos or dollars, thanks to the convertibility. It also kept 1.3 which was already present in the previous generation. And the range is completed with a Diesel version, with a 60 horsepower 1.8 engine.
The first major change came in 1999 when Ford introduced the New Edge style. which was born with the Ka to the entire range of cars. The trapezoidal optic, which on the front recalled a feline gaze, was the hallmark of that design line that the Fiesta was presented at the last Frankfurt Motor Show of the twentieth century.
The fifth generation of the Ford boy launched in 2001 in Europe, started production in Brazil in 2002 and in 2003 it was already present in Argentina. The range no longer had Zetec engines but instead featured the 68 horsepower 1.4 TDCi, a superior diesel driver.
Always compact and hatchback, with the Kinetic Design 2009 line, it undoubtedly brought the most exceptional novelty in the 25 years that the Fiesta had been in the local market: the trunk, because it also began to be produced in a four-door sedan version. An attempt to expand the segment to compete with the Corsa and the Clio that went against the historicity of the model, difficult to digest at first sight (even second and third).
Furthermore, the range had already grown in size, with a length of over four meters, against the 3.6 meters that the originals had. While remaining in the B segment, over the years it has added equipment (imposed by Europe) to be closer to the C than its competitors. Quality and price have increased and regional sales have decreased.
So it was that after the presentation of the restyling of the sixth generation in 2018 (when the seventh was already sold in Europe since 2016), at the beginning of 2019 the cessation of production in Sao Paulo and marketing in the region was announced. For many it was a see you later, but in truth it was the beginning of a long goodbye that will take place in a few months.
Source: Clarin
