Ford to kill off the Fiesta | GRR
Ford has today confirmed that the Fiesta, traditionally one of Britain’s best-selling cars, is to end production in June 2023. This, after eight generations and almost five decades on sale, as one of the Blue Oval’s European stalwarts.
Indeed, its performance over the last decade or more has been spectacular for Ford, as a near-permanent fixture in the top-ten best sellers and regularly topping the table. That was until last year, when it slipped out of the top ten entirely, as the Ford Puma, its crossover cousin, took eighth, and the new Vauxhall Corsa took the top spot.
Granted, these last 18 months have been a struggle for the car industry as it’s desperately tried to drag itself out of a pandemic-induced coma. For reference, the Fiesta’s sales in 2019 were a reasonably healthy 77,833 units. Compare that to the Corsa, whose comparatively meagre 40,914-unit volume for the year was still enough to secure its best-seller status.
So quite like the Mondeo, which met its end earlier this year, it’ll be leaving us in part due to dwindling sales. We say in part, because like the Mondeo’s demise, the Fiesta will also be moving out of the way as part of Ford’s transition to electrification. Indeed, the Corsa that topped last year’s list has an electric version in its range. It’s not just the Fiesta that’s bowing out to make way for Ford’s electric future either. It’ll be following the S-Max and Galaxy MPVs, which are due to end production in April next year.
As for the future? Ford plans to be selling more than 600,000 electric cars in the European region by 2026, with production at the Cologne plant reaching 1.2 million vehicles over six years. There are three new all-electric passenger cars coming by 2024 and four new electric commercial vehicles.
In Ford’s emotional goodbye video for the Fiesta, the end panel shows four silhouettes with their day runners on. One we can absolutely tell is a Puma and the one next to it a Mustang Mach-E of some description. While the identities of the other two are difficult to determine, the third along does look larger, suggesting a Kuga-like EV SUV is joining the fray. We look forward to seeing what comes next from Ford, though the Fiesta for us, as with many others, is going to be a tough goodbye indeed.