Friday, January 02, 2009

rental car review: Ford Fiesta (circa Sept '07)

Looking back on it, I never put in a review of either of the cars I drove on my last two vacations overseas. Looking to right that slight, we'll start with what I can remember about the Ford Fiesta I drove in Spain in September of 2007.

It was small and nimble, but felt a little shaky around 80 mph. Our luggage barely fit in the trunk and we travelled pretty light. We put a lot of miles on it and it was passable as a long distance cruiser, but the higher speeds definitely caused it to strain more than a more powerful car would. I had some trouble getting into a good seating position since the seat didn't go back quite as far as I wanted. Did I mention it was small? But it got solid gas mileage, even driven hard with a lot of semi-questionable U-turns. Fun enough, but definitely a budget sort of auto.

A redesigned Fiesta should launch in Europe this year and hopefully jump across the pond next year. Here's to hoping it can compete with the likes of the Honda Fit, something the Chevy Aveo is woefully in capable of doing.

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