Ford Fiesta: Young at heart

The mostly Aussie development team of the new Ford Fiesta Duratec 1.6 S is extremely enthusiastic on the evening preceding the car’s first media drive. The way they commend the handling and the steering feedback of the new car makes you get really curious. Michael Boneham, the new MD at Ford India sounds extremely upbeat and confident about the machine’s superiority over its peers. Curious as I always get with such statements, the night takes a long time to pass.

In the morning, as I look at the new car from a distance in broad daylight, I realise that it’s a subtle departure from the rather conservative demeanour of the original Fiesta. The new twin-barrel, sportily black-edged headlamp is the first visual aberration from the contemporary headlight design of the regulation Fiesta.

The turn indicators are integrated on the inside of the new headlamp unit. Aesthetically, this new position of the orange lights may be justified, but functionally they should have been placed as widely as possible on the flanks of the car to enhance visibility.

There’s a big spoiler on the boot lid now, that has immensely helped the car look lean, athletic and energetic. Complimenting the spoiler is a new set of side skirts and sporty, angular panels on the front and rear bumpers. The bumpers too have undergone a makeover to add some more muscle to the latest Fiesta’s appearance. The front bumper now incorporates a big central air dam with a honeycomb mesh, while the rear bumper has a black plastic insert on the underside – Evo X style. The exhaust too is chrome tipped and augments the car’s sportier appeal. The 1.6 S also sports stylish new 15 inch (an inch bigger than standard) alloys that we absolutely loved, purely due to its design factor. The tyre profile has been reduced to compensate for the increase in the wheel size.

Climb into the car and you realise that the infusion of subtle sportiness continues inside the cabin as well. The most prominent changes are the new colours for the seat fabric as well as the style and dye of the parallel running twin stitches. Done in two-tone dark and light gray, the new treatment manages to enliven the interiors of the car. Under the fabric, the seats too are new and feature better bolstering for both shoulders and thighs for enhanced lateral support during hard cornering. Stainless steel accelerator, brake and clutch pedals add their bit towards the car’s overall sporty theme. The dials for the clocks on the instrumentation are new with a black-grey honeycomb finish, titanium finish bezels and a new, bigger, racier font for the markings. The center console for the car now features a two DIN single CD audio unit with MP3 capability and a dedicated audio input jack mounted in the trinket tray.

Apart from the fancy bits, the new Fiesta 1.6 S also boasts of some serious safety equipment. The driver and passenger front airbags and ABS are now standard. The ABS on the Fiesta 1.6 S is assisted by electronic brake force distribution that serves primarily to control longitudinal slip and applies brakes selectively on individual wheels allowing maximum driver control.

Ford India claim to have worked exhaustively on the suspension of the Fiesta 1.6 S to significantly improve its handling. Tuning a suspension for better handling usually results in a huge compromise in ride quality. Ford chassis engineers, however, claim to havebeen able to bias the Fiesta 1.6 S to provide excellent driving dynamics without sacrificing comfort. Springs, dampers, bump stops, etc have been specially tuned to deliver better feedback as well as road holding and are complimented in the act by the bigger wheels and low profile tyres. While the new suspension was designed primarily by Ford engineers in Australia, the final on-road tuning was undertaken in India, around Pune. Further tests were conducted at the Madras Race Track.

In a bid to lure the enthusiast, the new Fiesta has been given a few shots of botox and has been draped in designer robes. The car has always boasted of the best performance in its class. Now it’s been infused with some visual character too. With all these added bits, the Fiesta 1.6 duratec, in its ‘s’ trim looks really cool, and decidedly sexy in the new aquarius colour. Painted in that gorgeous bluish shade, the Fiesta 1.6 s is just the right car in its segment for the young at heart.

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