All-new Ford Fiesta to go global

To launch a new car to the international media with the headlines that ‘The Ford Fiesta, is the most significant global product since the Model T was launched exactly 100 years ago’ and ‘The new Fiesta heralds the future for Ford product development’ – are powerful statements.

The new Fiesta is the first product of Ford’s new Global Product Development System (GPDS) and has been designed and developed to meet the differing needs of customers as diverse as Western and Eastern European, North and South America, China, Australia and South Africa.

Ford said this week at the Fiesta’s international press launch that the new GPDS process will dictate the future of Ford product development. The company has a ‘One Ford’ vision of a single, global company designing and building cars for a single, global customer base, not divided by regional or national borders.

However Ford says it is not ‘a one size fits all' situation. Each model range, whilst using the same core design, will have specific changes to the engine line-up, suspension settings, trim and equipment levels and pricing to meet local market conditions.

Initially the new Fiesta will be built in Cologne, Germany, Valencia Spain and Nanjing, China and with other plants likely to based in the USA and Asia. Ford said the new Fiesta will be built in three Continents but sold in five.

Ford would give no indication of their worldwide sales aspirations for the all new Focus but John Fleming, President and Chief Executive Officer, Ford of Europe said recently, “Over the past 32 years Fiesta has consistently been top of the list of Europe’s best selling cars. Over 12 million have been sold, 400,000 of them in 2007”. In the future Fiesta will become Ford’s largest selling model range worldwide.

In the UK 3.4 million Fiestas have been sold since 1977, 103,000 were sold last year and in 2009 it is likely to be in the region of 104,000. In the first seven months of this year nearly 60,000 have been registered making it currently the UK’s fourth best selling model range after the Ford Focus and Vauxhall’s Corsa and Astra models. Ford say the Fiesta is the UK’s best selling retail car with 63% of registrations being to private buyers.

Roelant de Waard, Chairman and Managing Director for Ford of Britain said this week, “It is a real joy for me to work at the Ford Motor Company at the present because we have such a good range of new vehicles ranging from the S-Max, Mondeo, Focus, now Fiesta and soon the new Ka.”

“As for Fiesta we expect the sales split between three and five-door models to remain at the 50/50 level, 73% will be petrol versions with the 1.25-litre being the most popular engine. We think the new Fiesta will attract 33% of conquest customers. Our target audience is 25 to 34 year olds and the average age of our existing Fiesta owners is 46 years of age.”

He added, “The Zetec models will be the main selling version taking 35% of sales with Style and Style + each taking 24% of sales and the top Titanium models around 10%. I expect the ECOnetic version to achieve 3,000 registrations in a full year.”

“Although the mainstream models are marginally more expensive than the outgoing range the industry predictions are that the new Fiesta residual values will rise on average across the range by £1,000 over the 3-year/60,000 period and to further lower running costs the new insurance ratings start at just 1E and the highest rating is only 6E.”

The all-new Fiesta ‘supermini’ size three and five- door hatchbacks go on sale in the UK during October priced from £8,695, £155 less than the outgoing equivalent current starter model. Fuel frugal ECOnetic versions which are exempt from road tax will be priced from £11,845 and sporty and luxury versions start from £12,095.

There are Studio, Style, Style+, Zetec, Zetec S, Titanium and ECOnetic levels of specification with four petrol and two diesel engine choices. The new and revised power units will annually save over 11,000 tonnes of CO2 across Europe compared to the previous Fiesta say Ford.

With a higher quality and specification the new Fiesta is on average £340 more expensive than the version it replaces and Ford says all models have improved fuel economy and lower emissions.

Ford said the new Fiesta is ‘our smallest large car’. It virtually has the same footprint as the outgoing models but they are 40kg lighter, 55% per cent of the bodyshell is made of high strength steel and there is a 10% increase in body stiffness.

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