Skyhook
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Some sort of petrol FiestaFor all of 11 miles, it was a courtesy car while the Panda was in for a service.
Dull.
Okies, you want a bit more.
This is subjective, but the styling does nothing for me, infact I actively dislike it. I don't find the shape cohesive or in the slightest appealling, it's just too muddled. Not that the Fiesta is alone in this - there seems to be no simplicity or purity in car design nowadays.
From the driver's seat the first thing I noticed was how grippy the seats were. I'm not that much of a fat lad but the side bolsters were very tight.
There was a comically large expanse of dash between the steering wheel and the base of the screen. It felt like an MPV rather than a, well, Fiesta. The screen was very steeply raked, great for aero I'm sure, but it meant there needed to be a small window in the A pillar. Again this is subjective, but it seemed to make the Fiesta feel less of a 'car', more just a mode of transport.
This was a three door, and the doors were huuuuuuuge! Because of the rake of the screen and the little A pillar windows the door window area was square fronted, vertical. A little thing, but again, made you feel you were in an MPV. Not very stylish.
The windows are very shallow. Very. A thin strip, rising at the bottom edge towards the rear of the car. Quite cool, for the fronts looking through a 'letterbox', funkily different, but pants on toast at the rear. Crap visibility when reversing, and it must be rotten to sit in the rear. This is, after all a small family car?
I can't really comment on performance as the drive was too short, but the ride was a revelation after the Panda. Bumps and imperfections that the 100HP bounces over were simply not there in the Fiesta. It felt like a car from several classes above.
However, the steering was overlight, with no 'joy' to it. I do respect Ford in this area though, so I think it'd take a longer test drive to truly judge.
Which is true of the whole car, of course. But as a lover of rather basic raw cars like the Panda and Sportka, I'm always disappointed that 'better' cars don't offer so much more.
The Fiesta beats Panda on ride refinement, space (but not by a lot) but by trying to be more mature it maybe tries to hard and loses out because of that.
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