Ford Fiesta is 30 years old today

Blue Oval's made 3.2m of the things since 1976

By PH Staff / Wednesday, 8 February 2006 / Loading comments

Ford Fiesta ST

Who'd have thought it? The Ford Fiesta is 30 years old today. When Ford launched its Fiesta in 1976 with an entry-level price of £1,856, it hoped to create a new best-seller in the UK market but instead it redefined the city car market and the Fiesta became the starter car for millions of us. It was also Ford's first front-wheel-drive car.

Since then it's sold 3.2 million in the UK alone -- if stacked on top of each other they'd be higher than 500 Mount Everests. Parked bumper to bumper, the queue would stretch from London to Bali (it says here).

In the long hot summer of 1976, the average weekly wage was around £70, income tax was 35 per cent and inflation soared to 17 per cent. It was the year of punk, economic austerity and Star Wars. Personal computers, MP3 players, mobile phones and the Internet remained the dreams of scientists.

So what's changed in 30 years? It would take 50 new Fiestas to produce the same toxic emissions as a single Mk I in 1976. Unlike the original Fiesta, the current version is 85 per cent recyclable, too. And while the Mk I was economical for its era, it couldn't match today's Ford Fiesta, which can travel the 650 miles from London to Inverness on a single tank of fuel.

Ford (of course) claims leadership of the small car segment, describing it as the UK's most popular choice among private 'retail' customers in the supermini sector with 14.2 per cent market share in 2005.