niCarFinder.co.uk

Reader Review Rating:
click to vote (0 votes)

Blue heaven

Ford’s Fiesta Supermini has appeared in six generations with numerous tweaks and versions. The Zetec Blue Special Edition is the latest. Steve Ghosley reports…

Ford is now giving supermini customers the opportunity to more carefully choose their own special edition Fiesta with the latest Zetec Blue special edition model that we look at here. Based on the Style Climate variant, the Zetec Blue costs £200 more yet, because of its added standard features valued at around £800, offers buyers a real value for money option in the very competitive supermini sector of the market.

The usual drawback with special editions from all manufacturers is that the choices of trim and equipment are usually all pre-specified and you have to take the car as seen rather than add your own characterisation. With the Fiesta Zetec Blue however, there’s a lot more choice on offer. There are new colour and trim choices including new interior trims (Pacific Pearl and Pacific Dusk), plus six body colours including a new Blazer Blue. Standard equipment includes body coloured bumpers, handles, mouldings and door mirrors, front fog lights, a rear spoiler, a leather steering wheel with aluminium trim, a single slot Sony CD player, 16-inch seven-spoke sport alloy wheels, electrically operated and heated door mirrors, air conditioning and a Quickclear heated windscreen.

The Fiesta Zetec Blue benefits from the car’s most recent facelift. The grille is now of a diamond mesh design, the headlamps are pointier and the side mouldings grow thicker as they progress rearwards. The rear lights have been reshaped, as have the bumpers and the overall effect is a slight move away from the Fiesta’s inherent chunkiness in a sleeker, more dynamic direction. Dramatic the changes are not. If you liked the look of the sixth generation Fiesta, and the sales charts suggest that plenty of people did, you’ll like today’s version of it.

Priced from £9,995, the Fiesta Zetec Blue offers up few surprises but an impressive degree of choice. You can specify your car in the three or five-door bodystyles. Whichever option you ultimately pick, interior space is a definite strongpoint. In versions past, Ford’s supermini served up cattle class rear seating that would ask serious questions of anyone bar small children and national hunt jockeys. Now two proper adults can be accommodated with little fuss. There’s 268 litres of luggage space in the three-door Fiesta or 284 litres in the five-door and in each instance those volumes more than treble when you fold the rear seats down.

"It offers buyers a real value for money option in the very competitive supermini sector of the market"

The Fiesta Zetec Blue’s three-powerplant engine line-up offers both petrol and diesel choices. Starting out, you have two entry-level petrol options - solid units and very economical. The 1.25-litre entry-level choice produces 74bhp and a 13.6s 0-60mph sprint but its major selling point will be the 45.6mpg combined fuel consumption. The 79bhp 1.4-litre alternative can hit 60mph in 12.3s and returns 43.5mpg, so many will be inclined to find the required premium over the smaller alternative. The diesel option is probably the best of the trio – the 1.4-litre TDCi. The 1.4-litre TDCi has just 67bhp to call upon and a pedestrian 14.4s 0-60mph time but an outstanding 64.2mpg combined economy showing and a full 160Nm of torque at 2,000rpm mean that this unit has a muscular feel and a puny appetite. There should be few complaints about the Fiesta’s handling whichever engine you choose. With accurate steering, one of the best gearboxes in the sector and plenty of grip, fun is always on the cards.

The Fiesta has come in for some criticism in the past over the quality of the materials used in its cabin but the current car has progressed on this score. There are more of the in vogue soft-touch surfaces but, happily, the uncomplicated layout and the durable feel remain. Nice touches include a digital display in the instrument cluster which gives the radio station name and other handy titbits that you’d otherwise have to divert your eyes from the road obtain. The volume on the stereo is speed sensitive so as wind, road and engine noise increase with your velocity, so does the volume of your favourite song.

The Fiesta is an entertaining handler, if a little less infectious than the larger Focus. The steering’s rich in feedback and the body roll well controlled. That may sound irrelevant if all you want to do is bimble to the shops and back but should you ever be in an emergency, having a car that changes direction easily, controllably and predictably could just make the difference between having or avoiding an accident. Twin dual stage front airbags are standard equipment as are five three-point seat belts. Ford have developed a clever crash severity sensor at the front of the car that can work out whether you’ve bumped a supermarket trolley or fallen asleep at the wheel and encountered the Watford Gap Service Station thus deploying the airbags correspondingly. There’s also an ingenious ‘de-coupling’ brake pedal assembly that serves to reduce the possibility of lower leg injuries in the event of a shunt.

Ford’s Fiesta continues to be a small car with real substance and the Zetec Blue offers customers an option with some real value for money. It is enjoyable to drive with good interior space, it’s very well-equipped and has a genuine feeling of strength about its construction. Visually, it isn’t the most exciting supermini you’ll encounter, although tweaks to the styling have refreshed things to some extent. The Fiesta may have been around in various forms since 1977 but the current one is bang up to date and worthy of its place amongst the UK’s supermini favourites. The Zetec Blue Special Edition should maintain the Fiesta’s popularity a little longer.