I believe this is the first Aspire featured at CC. Not that I think I deserve a medal for it – this is a car we’ve ragged on many, many times in the comments of other posts. One running theme in those comments has been how these seemed to all crap out well before they reached 100,000 miles. My experience here in Rustopia bears it out – this is the first one I’ve seen in years.
I rented one of these once, in this color. Is it just my imagination, or were 80% of these this color? Anyway, it ranks as the all-time least enjoyable rental I ever had, even behind the execrable 2005 Malibu I rented once. That Aspire had very little power and it felt like it was made out of aluminum foil. I worried constantly about not being able to get out of the way of a comparatively enormous Escort on a collision course, and having this car crush around me. I never felt so vulnerable behind the wheel of a car before.
I wished I had time to photograph this car and give it more of a writeup, but I was late for my next appointment. I took a quick photo from the driver’s seat of my car and moved on.
Truth in Nomenclature Award Winner. Beating out the Yugo Yearn, the Pontiac Pine, and the Daihatsu Dammit I’d Rather be Riding the Bus than be Seen in This.
It aspires to be a real car. The mid 90’s were tough on cars like this. Gas was cheap, the economy was booming, cars were generally getting bigger and certainly more powerful. Nobody wanted little cars, particularly from the American brands. Typical auto boom and bust cycle that left the American brands flat footed a decade later.
That’s the way I thought of the name “Aspire” when these were new; as the sort of car that made one want to put in lots of overtime and get into something less embarrassing. If you think of it this way the negatives become features. Or not.
Something a sardine aspires to.
There are hundreds of these still running in new Zealand. They were badged as ford fiestas and were actually made by Kia in Korea.
Yes and after Ford canceled the Aspire, Kia decided to bring it to North America (or at least Canada, not sure about the U.S.) under their own brand. They slightly restyled it and added new body styles and a bit more content. My partner had a 2002 Kia Rio wagon – it was very small but cute as a button! Came with a/c and power windows and locks and nice cloth seats. Unfortunately it was a POS. It developed a no-start problem before long and the dealer service was terrible, they could never figure out what the problem was. $1500 in repairs later, my partner ditched it for a Ford Focus hatchback and never looked back. This car + the bad dealer service turned him off the Kia brand forever.
Yes, I remember checking out these cute little cars back when they came out in Canada, They were nicely designed, but seemed a bit expensive for what they were, in our dollars. I was driving a Plymouth Sundance at the time, and quite happy with it. Here is a pic of the 5-door hatchback variant, which seemed more popular at the time. I also recall that KIA was not known for quality back then, as well.
I don’t believe the Rio and Aspire/Avella are related. The latter is a development of the 121/Pride/Festiv (I think).
Korean built Mazda 121 Thousands would be a better count thery are everywhere.
mazda 121 with 1.3 litre engine are tough as nails.in many developing countries they come under kia pride nameplate&last several hundred thousands km with just regular oil change&timing belt.amazing cockroaches.
I don’t want to claim that these cars were completely inconsequential, but the ONLY memory I’ve got of the marque is a certain article written by Jack Baruth a couple of years ago in TTAC that caused a lot of controversy due to the language, And the sticking point wasn’t the car, it was what the kid’s father had to say, reported verbatim by Jack.
After having done an excellent car with the Fiesta, then a rather decent one with the (Kia) Festiva, Ford goes and does this. One of the most forgettable cars ever made.
i wonder, did it have anything to do with the sickly pink metallic ones, that another 20 percent of these came in ?
Total buzzkill, JG. After bathing in the warm glow of Laurence’s Avanti piece, we get this. 🙂 I guess this means back to reality and back to work.
My work here is done.
I have only ridden in an Aspire once. My mother had one as a rental while her car was being repaired, since they were the cheapest thing on the lot, I imagine.
There is an uphill climb of about a mile on the highway near my hometown where at the time, the speed limit was 100 km/h. I remember her doing 110 at the bottom of the hill, and 85 at the top.
My 1992 Saturn 5-speed, with all of 85 hp was able to maintain its speed up that same hill, no downshift required.
The Aspire was so bad, that one event has stuck in my head ever since and I consider myself a Ford guy.
The only one I’ve ever ridden in was due to the exact same reason. I remember it was the first car I ever sat in where you could easily (and accidentally, old cars don’t count) see body-colored sheet metal exposed all over the cabin.
Only Aspire I’ve seen on TV was used on “Always Sunny in Philadelphia” as comic relief. It was supposed to be a pathetic car and I think they chose well.
The idea that they were going to drive to the Grand Canyon from Philadelphia, in an Aspire, towing a U-haul, with 5 people + a hitchhiker (and no luggage) really goes to show how insanely out of touch those characters are.
Yes, and it still had a cassette player, they went to a flea market to try and find a cassette that they could play on the road trip, all they could find was a Soul Asylum cassette, Sweet Dee bought the Aspire to replace the Neon that they destroyed a couple of seasons before.
They originally were going to tow the U-Haul with Dennis’ 1990 or so Range Rover, but they ran over a cyclist and broke the Range Rover.
I love that show! It’s even funny on paper! The bit where they got smoked out trying to keep warm by burning furniture in the u-haul was great too! I notice that Dennis’ Range Rover is aging in real time, the condition is getting pretty rough but it still exudes a classy presence. I wonder when exactly cassette players were phased out, my 2003 Benz has an excellent factory Bose tape player that I imagine must be one of the last.
Lexus still had them on the ES300 until about 5 or 6 years ago believe it or not.
The Ford Festiva was a good car. A Mazda 121, made by Kia, and sold by Ford. Originally produced as a four and five speed car, the Festiva was engineered extremely well, thanks to Mazda. It had an excellent little engine and was designed to seat four adults – comfortably. It did. It got up to 50 miles per gallon. It lasted forever. I absolutely loved mine and it lasted 20 years.
But by 1992, it was time for a redesign and the old Festiva had to go. In it’s place was an entirely new body weighing substantially more, sitting on the same car. The little 12 inch Festiva tires were replaced with 13 inch tires. Additionally, it was decided to put an automatic transmission, air bags, and more sound deadening into the new car. What began as a perfect little box car, ended up being an overburdened and overweight mess.
Fortunately, it didn’t sell well to the public. Within six months, these cars ended up being rolled into rental car fleets as entry level punishment vehicles for cheap renters. The little Mazda engines couldn’t shove around all that flab and also be yanked around by a three speed automatic transmission that it was never designed to work with.
What was supposed to have been an update, was the kiss of death and the Aspire, expired.
These were a disappointing sequel to the rather decent, cheap but pretty tough little Festiva. I remember these came in all sorts of BRIGHT, “I love the 90’s!!!” colors, teal, yellow, pink, something to attract the “utes”, they love them some bright colors and some Fruitopia.
Perfect time capsule there.
When my GF needed to buy her first car, her father the Ford sales associate tried to set her up with a new Aspire
Her response was “No Dad, I want a real car” so she later wound up with the slightly used 5-Speed Topaz.
This is one of the ways I knew my GF was a keeper, and also explains why we liked the Topaz so much.
It looks familiar was it sold as something else in the UK?
Nope, never sold here as far as I recall.
The fairly anonymous styling could be what’s foxing you – the three door looks a lot like a cheap 4:5 scale copy of the 2nd Gen Vauxhall Astra (aka Opel Kadett E/Daewoo Nexia/Pontiac LeMans etc.) just as one example.
I’ve always thought these epitomised the different status of small cars in the US and Europe. You couldn’t have sold this car here, let alone under the Ford brand. It would just have been laughed at, even in a 90s Kia showroom. Of course it was laughed at plenty over there too, but somehow still sold, and sold as a Ford! That’s baffling from a UK/European perspective, and understandably so when you look at what was selling in the same segment at the same time from the same company over here.
Thanks a good job it wasn’t sold here!
There is a segment of population in Central- and South-Eastern Europe WHO prefers small and midsized North-American spec cars…like me for example. As when Ford Aspire had been a new model few dozens of it came in by private imports… Even in my neighbourhood some folks had them. BUT those Aspires has extincted quite quickly. The Pontiac (by Daewoo) Le Manses overlived the Aspires and if not daily but one or two of them could be still seen on the roads in a week or two. It’s maybe because of the good image of the evergreen Opel Kadett-E series (equal to Vauxhall Astra Mk2) which was its predecessor and the once regularly sold Daewoo Racer/Cielo/Nexia which are technically almost the same as the Pontiac Le Mans.
A young woman I worked with for a while had one of these, in this color. If you stared at it long enough it would dent.
I bought one of these back in 1997ish. It was beige. It ran forever on a tank of gas. It had zero power so I always had my foot all the way down on the Interstate. I live in mountain area and had to get in the right lane with 4 ways on more often than not. The side molding faded right away and didn’t match the car within the first year. My friend backed into it in the first 30 days and put a dent above the headlight. I never got that fixed. Other than that, it was under $9,000 brand new and for a single mom on a tight budget, got me and the kids to where we needed to go until I was able to upgrade to my Saab. That’s another story. Saab story that is. 😉
Was the Aspire really worse than the Ford Fiestiva and Pontiac Firefly?
Definitely worse than the Festiva – which was a good little car. And way worse than the Firefly (I believe that’s the Geo Metro in the states?).
Both of you examples were actually good cars if you were into A and B-class cars.
What’s really sad is at this moment, this post has more comments than Laurence’s excellent Avanti post. Y’all go back to his post and say something now, y’hear?
I just wish my GF had an Avanti when I met her. I would have proposed sooner.. 🙂
As I’ve often pointed out, the number of comments does not have a direct relationship to how many read a post. What often stimulates comments is the number of readers who have had direct experience with a car, and undoubtedly (and unfortunately) more have been exposed to the Aspire than an Avanti.
It’s just more fun to comment on crappy cars!
we have a website called autodimerda.it (shittycars.it) that makes fun of many lemons. Some good cars are thrown in the lot too, and debate follows.
I sometimes struggle to come up with a comment that I feel is worthy of publishing so I do not comment on some articles even though I have a few ideas.
Paul is right though, more people have experiences with Aspires. I see a few around Portland, OR, but I have to drive past this one house to see any Studebakers.
These are still pretty common in my neck of the woods as the Kia Avella, in five door form, and the surviving ones are for the most part in pretty bad shape. I looked at one when I was selling my Skoda Felicia in 1999, and despite the A/C and other luxury features, you could see it was built to a price (a very low one) rather than to a standard. KIa has truly come a long way since then.
Aspire: Aspiring to be a car. Needs to be Probe-d…
Piece. Of. Junk.
I knew someone who had one of these back in high school. You all know the type, that one obnoxious guy who thinks he’s cool and popular and as soon he’s not around, everyone’s shaking their heads in dismay and muttering ‘what a jackass.’
Well I ran track with that guy, and all throughout junior year he was boasting that he was soon to be blessed with a new car. And it was new all right, a teal three-door Aspire identical to the subject car, except his had that squiggly pink pinstripe I recall on so many Aspires.
We used to snigger and call it the ‘ass-pire.’ Even by the standards of 1996, we all knew this was a pathetic little car.
HA! I worked with a guy back in college who wouldn’t shut up about how hard he worked to get to asst dept mgr of the hardware area when a bunch of us worked at Sears. This guy was much like your H.S. ‘buddy’…a nice enough dude in most ways but in many others, kind of a tool. He had just bought a Jetta and in his mind it was a Porsche. After he knocked up his G/F, she was driving the VW, and he was stuck driving her Aspire…looked just like this but with the pink puke splatters down the sides. Somehow, seeing him in that car wasn’t all that weird….
Not trying to be overly harsh, but why would someone buy one of these as opposed to a three year old Civic? I mean really… Maybe a lease so if (when) it turns out ot be a POS you can walk away and cut your losses.
These were responsible, along with the miserable original Sephia, for Kia’s bad image in the US market for a long, long time. They didn’t recover until recently in a lot of people’s eyes, when they started making actually desirable cars and very publicly stood behind them with the 100K mile powertrain warranty. I wouldn’t have even thought of a Kia until around 2010. (Then I went and bought one in late 2011 and it’s been completely trouble-free, though it’s just coming up on 3 years so far,)
And I agree with a *very* high proportion of them being this shade of oh-so-90’s metallic teal. The few that weren’t this color seemed to be either an odd shade of magenta, an even odder (and rare) shade of lavender, or a bright red that faded to “tomato soup” after a few years.
A lot of folks back then (and still today) will not buy used due to the mindset that they might be buying somebody else’s problems. Yes a 3 year old Civic might be loads better but can you really trust that the person that owned it for those 3 years took care of it. Buying new meant at least you knew nobody abused it before you bought it.(well besides the lot boy).
A new car (even a cheapy new car) will have a warranty which a 3 year old car might not have.
in the 1990’s banks were more reluctant to loan money for a used car then a new car and the rates on a new car were probably much better then on a used car.
Finally, a 3 year old Civic probably cost more then a new Aspire.
Because you could get an Aspire in PINK!
I had forgotten there was a five-door version…
Why would buyers of these cars prefer them over 3 year old Civics? Because their previous cars were from Ford or GM. The idea that a used car might still be a dependable, solid vehicle was completely foreign to them.
Hondas tend to be pricer and sometimes over priced for their age compared to other vehicles.
Yup Mr. Gray you beat me to the punch. I took a picture of a Aspire in the local junk yard this weekend. It was a purplish blue color that seems to have been popular in my area.
It was the first car in its class(sub compact) in the USA to have dual airbags standard and optional anti-lock brakes.
They really were not bad cars for the era. It competed with the Hyundai Excel/Accent, Toyota Tercel and Geo Metro (not exactly great cars ether)
Remember in the 1990’s those buying a subcompact car in the USA were one of the following
1. New driver that could only afford a small car.
2. people that could not afford a bigger car due to income and did not want to get a used car.
3. A family that needed a second or 3rd car (perhaps to send the kid to college)
4. Somebody that wanted a car for commuting purposes.
5. A total skinflint that wanted a new car but did not want to pay much for it.
None of the above were going to be big spenders so there was no reason for car makers to make them well equipped or full of quality.
I know someone who bought one, just walked into the dealership and asked for the newest, cheapest car on the lot. It’s car for the driver who doesn’t care about cars or getting flattened like a pancake on the interstate.
I rented a tan one when I had to drive to a job interview. It had a teeny little gas tank. It was scary as hell on I-66 in NoVa.
Aspire? Expire was more like it.
Yes Leon, you hit the nail on the head. The only reason anyone would even consider one of these Aspires was dealer financing. In the 90s, used car loan terms were something that would tug at the morality of the knee-breakingest loan shark.
If you needed a car, and as public transport was even rarer then than now, and didn’t have at least $3000 cash to get something half decent, this was one of your few options.
In 1996, I was 19. My $700 Mustang 2 was rod knocking its way to Iacocca Hell, and I had a steady job but only about $500 in cash that wasn’t already allocated for other bills.
I looked at one of these, but the Ford dealer in Southwest Denver quoted me a 21% interest rate. I may have been young, but I wasn’t stupid. They wouldn’t even let me look at an Escort or Ranger, saying I couldn’t afford it. It is no wonder so few of these Aspires sold if my experience was typical. I have a hunch that they were CAFE quota cars or something and thus there was no desire to sell them.
I went across the road to the Dodge dealership, as I remember my parents only option for sub-usurious financing in the early 80s was an Aries, and for half of the payment of the Aspire drove out with a new (last of the boxy generation) Dakota, and it was exactly what I wanted- a rubber floored, mid-sized truck that felt like a proper vehicle, and a tough one at that. All that on an ‘incentives down’ 5 year loan at under 9%, which was good at the time for a 19 year old without a cosigner. The 3/36 warranty reduced my gambling time to 2 years of the finance agreement, which seemed fine.
The late 90s were a terrible time for budget car buyers. Neons blew their head gaskets, Escorts, well, were Escorts unless you got he Mazda engine and still were priced too high, leaving only a Cavalier as a real crapshoot. Japanese cars were still way to expensive, as the vinyl and 4 speed strippers were becoming dodo birds. Kias and Hyundais were still, well, Aspires. Or worse. I think the only reliable value car at the time was the Geo Prizm, although the dealer must have been beyond my Mustang’s bearing life, as I have no idea if they would be financed as easily.
For those lucky enough to not need a rear seat, at least the cheap domestic pickup was still being made as rugged and reliable as ever.
Regarding used Hondas or Toyotas, these simply were not affordable. This was still the era when the differential between a used Civic and a new one was so minimal as to put them beyond the reach of someone needing basic wheels, especially when you couldn’t get a used car financed for love or money. Hondas were status symbols, and it seems that most Civics were sweet 16 gifts for little entitled princesses, if you were to judge by my high school. Even if you found one used, it was certain that it had been maintained with the care and attentiveness that high school and college students lavish on everything that they didn’t pay for with their own money.
It was a different world back then in so many ways, and yet in spite of the difficulties, that was still back when you could walk into a full time job and know that if you lost it you could get a new job the following day.
Were these sold in ANY other color besides dark teal? That’s the only shade I’ve seen on this car ever, since they were new.
They also came in “chalk” and “strawberry milkshake” if I remember correctly. The white lost clearcoat so fast, you’d think they painted them matte from the factory!
This category of cheap/small cars are disappearing so quickly that finally they’ll deserve the title “rarity” and probably shall become collectibles!? 🙂 Buy the way few years ago I saw a Korean version badged as Kia Avella…
My elementary school friend’s father drove a silver one way back when. He eventually donated it to good will (probably the only way he could get rid of it).
I rented an AssPyre and the piece of matter got 17 mpg! And boy was it slow, it had to be floored most of the time to keep up w/ traffic.
It was a clown car that did everything poorly.
I’ve regularly seen a faded, red-orange Aspire that’s one of the many food delivery cars running around Ohio University.
Rented one of these–it was the last car they had–back around 1995 or so, to get from the Reno airport to Tahoe. Heading up into the mountains to Tahoe it would not reach 30 mph at certain points. No faster than the loaded semis I was forced to follow, with the throttle to the floor the entire time. On the way back the brakes could barely deal with the descent. Worst car I’ve ever driven by far. Made my wife’s old ’91 Mitsubishi Mirage seem like a rocket. To be fair, that old Mirage was a phenomenally reliable, well screwed together, fun driving little car.
I think my wife said her first car was an Aspire. I am thankful for two things about it: 1) She learned to drive a manual transmission on it, and 2) she got rid of it before we met.
What a miserable excuse for a car. We not-so-affectionately referred to them as Ass-fires at the Ford dealer I worked at when these were new. True story: a close friend of mine’s mother hit 6 million on the Ohio Lottery’s Super Lotto back in ’88, and my friend got 1.5 million of it. He kept driving his ’84 Caprice for a few more years before buying a new car… a ’94 Aspire. He always was a bit, er, peculiar. And… he’s an engineer at NASA’s Glenn Research Center. Like I said, peculiar.
I remember everything from the 90s pretty well, but I must admit, I do not remember these at all. At first I thought it was a car that wasn’t sold in the U.S.
Now, I’m struggling to recall if I’ve ever seen one. The smallest Fords I remember from that time were the little Escort wagons; I recall a classmate had one, as did some elderly neighbors up the street.
Everyone was buying Explorers and Lucent stock, nobody wanted anything so little. Even my Civic-loyal mom was convinced to upsize to that oh so popular Gen 4 Camry. Those were good years. This doesn’t seem to belong to them at all.
I don’t understand the dislike for the Aspire but the gushing praise for the Festiva? True the Aspire was no great car but it at least approached modernness with airbags and optional ABS. The Festiva was small, crude, ugly and even the manual transmission versions seemed to make sounds like a constipated walrus at highway speeds. The Aspire at least made a somewhat decent commuter car. The Festiva makes a Smart car seem like it is big and bloated.
To each his/her own I guess.
Because Festivas were durable and were actually rather fun to drive for what they were. The Ass-fire was a slow, ill handling, cramped, unreliable pile of useless crap.
Don’t hold it back? Tell us how you really feel…
😀
The endless procession of scornful comments has tickled my curiosity about this much-maligned little car. I have never owned or even rode on one, so I could not give it anything close to a fair evaluation. I was motivated, however, to read up on its history, and that is what I am going to do tonight.
I remember a car magazine in the 1990’s comparing the Aspire to the Festiva. The article said, in so many words, that the Aspire was slower, had less room inside, got fewer miles per gallon, and had a higher price tag than the Festiva. The only thing the Aspire had going for it over the Festiva was that “it was rounder”.
A few years ago I worked with a guy who still drove a white one of these. He loved the car, it had been purchased by his wife, it was starting to rust profusely, and it had just under 100k on it.
He also had a PT Cruiser he referred to as his “large” car. He was not joking, either.
Ive always wondered if Ford’s marketing dept actually ever looked up the word ‘aspire’ in the dictionary…since exactly WHO would ‘aspire’ to own this ugly flimsy wart of a car? OR was it just the implied insult that anyone who was forced to buy such a bottom feeder didn’t know what the word meant anyway? All this car is missing is the mandatory neon pink heartbeat/vomit splatter down the side. Seems all of these were either this teal or a weird magenta/pink. Did they even have any other colors?
As was mentioned, this was more or less the successor to the Festiva. I worked with a guy who had a Festiva…nasty cheap little shitbox but damn if that car wasn’t tough. This guy neglected that car as if to DARE it to quit on him. To this day, I swear that little turd continued to run out of sheer spite.
I doubt there are many celebrities driving a Chevrolet Celebrity. Not even as an ironic statement…
Wasn’t one of these the star of the film “Cellular”? They seem to last OK.
Did the now I believe “Pink Dot” use to run these?
dang – that should read “I believe defunct”
Never seen nor heard of this creature. But it immediately reminds me of a Lancia Delta 3 door from the same era. That is, only the side view.
I see these all the time out by where I work. Most of them are an awful light blue color and almost always held together with bungie cords, duct tape and hope. Used to see a teal one quite regularly that had the front end entirely smashed in and the hood buckled upwards and held shut with bungie cords, and it still drove. I get the feeling these are the kind of cars you buy for $300 and, as my dad would say “run it into the ground”
My aunt bought one of these, the same color but a 5-door version automatic, used in the late 90’s.
I remember when she drove it to my grandparent’s house and my stepgrandpa Steve said “Nice car, when are you going to pick up the other 1/3 of it?” He also was the one who dubbed it “the roller skate” which is what it was called for the rest of her ownership. She had the car for 3 or 4 years and it was a pretty good car for her. She still says it was a decent car, reliability wise.
I agree – these were poorly assembled cars, but the basic Mazda engineering and motor were fine – it was the Kia manufacturing that was the problem. Kudos to all the Korean car companies for the overall quite amazing improvement they’ve made over the past 20 years. But I can remember going into a Kia showroom in Korea during a military tour in the mid 80s – the showroom was full of older Mazda models, mostly assembled in knocked down kits. What struck me was all these new cars had drip pans underneath them on the showroom – they all leaked like a sieve…..
In a perfect two-point CC Effect, I have seen two of these things since Thursday! Both were extremely worn-out. One was even that metallic pink–well, most of it.
My first car looked just like this, and was Frankensteined (out of all the aspires that failed) all the way to 150k miles