We haven’t indulged in a Festiva fest for quite a while, but these two would like to have a bit of your attention. A closer look:
One belongs to a Ducks fan, which isn’t surprising. These tough little boxes, a Mazda 121 in disguise, are serious candidates for Cockroach of the Road™ status.
These were such strong little runabouts in their time; I can’t believe Ford and Kia dropped the ball so badly on the replacement Aspire.
I thought they were on a par with the Aspire (which was still badged Festiva in NZ). The Aspire was basically a 3/5 door version of the bubble-shaped 4 door Mazda 121 sedan. Both were very popular here – the Mazda did have a reputation as being less flimsy but seeing as they were basically the same this is likely perceptions rather than reality.
They are still making basically the same car now, look at a Demio closely
My aunt (in the UK) had the Mazda 121 twin. I remember riding in it some years back, it went well but was very flimsy. The 121 reminded me a bit of the Fiat Panda of the same era. Festiva’s are not around these parts very much if at all.
When I arrived in Korea in 1994, my Korean friends unanimously recommended the Kia Pride as the best used car available in the country. Kia had simply purchased the whole Mazda plant and moved it to Shintagin, near Deajeon. The Japanese managers were there for many years.
I didn’t drive in Korea as transportation was excellent and quite cheap. The boys would go boozing, for example, and $50 would keep you a cab waiting outside all night. We were all making good money, so it was a pittance. I knew many people who did have a Pride and they all swore the Pride was as tough as nails. The later four door sedan was a very big seller in Korea at the time.
When the Prides were done in Korea, most were exported to the Philippines, where they soldiered on as taxis until about 2007 or so.
Most of them are gone now, I can’t remember the last time I saw one on the road.
AFIK they were still in production in Iran until recently-this is a 2006 model.
They are pretty rare here in eastern Canada. There is one still prowling the streets where I live, but it has 3 or more body colours and the rust monster is well into consuming it. I think the exhaust is gone too, since it sounds like a ride-on mower.
I’m also in Eastern Canada!
Just last week there was a Festiva parked in the lot outside my workplace. Painted a bright blue with RX-7 wheels on it. I have also seen at various times a couple others in the city, including an “F-50”; creatively chopped into a pickup.
Oh Lawd… Now I’ve got that jingle stuck in my head: “It’s a Forrrrrrrrd. It’s a Fes-TEEE-VAAAAH.” LOL
Even here in the Milwaukee / Chicago “rust belt”, it is not unusual to see an occasional Festiva on the road. There is a house I pass on my way to work that has a few in the yard; one road worthy and a couple donors.
I always thought one of these would make a great mid-engine, rear-drive, really quick little box (ala R5 Turbo).
Have you heard of the SHOgun?
http://www.jaylenosgarage.com/at-the-garage/custom-built/1989-ford-shogun/
That’s pretty neat, although I’m disappointed they don’t show any pictures of the engine there.
I’ve mentioned before how I’m a car lover whose love ends at my own driveway. I have a long history of owning incredibly practical and often, dull, cars. Valiants, Falcons, Saturns and Rangers were my rides while I often worked with extremely fine automobiles as my work cars. Call me frugal, I guess.
My first new car was a 1988 Ford Festiva LX. $6666.00 got me a fully loaded, 5-speed manual. I expected it to last a couple of years at most. I was wrong – it is still on the road with over 350,000 miles on it. It was without a doubt, one of the best cars I’ve ever had.
The biggest problem with these cars were the ones with automatic transmissions, cheap tires and stripper interiors. As a 5-speed with expensive wide 12 inch tires, Festivas are fun to drive and were engineered to be fun. Once Ford started putting automatic transmissions and adding weight, the little cars couldn’t perform as my LX did.
What the Aspire did was add 400 pounds, larger 13 inch tires, and an automatic transmission to the Festiva, which turned what was a fun car into a dud.
These are really good cars.
OHMIGHOD, the cheap tyres!!!!! I had an ’89, not sure which model name, but the high end on. Red with black bumpers and rub strips, and a red line down the bumpers and rub strips. Seem to remember it stickered at about $8000.00 and wasn’t the one that was heavily advertised as the loss leader in the Saturday papers.
Loved the car, but the Yokohama’s that came on it must have been made of bakelite. Absolutely deadly in the wet, I had the car spin out on me a couple of times with no warning, driving straight down the road, no motion in the steering wheel whatsoever. Of course, cheap bastard that I could be, I got the full 50k out of the tyres before I replaced them.
I paid about $6600 for a brand new one in 88. It was the 5 speed LX. Awesome car that ran and ran and ran with never a need for repairs.
Mazda? I always thought these were rebadged Kias.
There’s an active club for Festivas & Aspires in the Raleigh area — they have an annual meet/show somewhere around there. I think they call it “Festiva Madness” or something.
Ford commissioned Mazda to design and build the Festiva for the Japanese home market. After the car was in production there, Kia started cranking them out for export to Canada and then the US.
These things were the crap in crappy little cars.
A friend of mine, who had come off a string of bad used cars, bought a Festiva for his first new car. A few weeks after he bought it, he and his brother were going someplace, and a woman in a 1979 Cutlass, not a huge car, ran a red light, and hit them at about 30MPH. His brother was almost killed, both legs, pelvis, right arm, shoulder, and a bunch of ribs were broken. My friend had his right leg and pelvis broken. His brother’s face had to be put back together, and he looks totally different now, think of Mark Hamill before “The Empire Strikes Back”, and “Star Wars”, the same thing happened to him. The Cutlass was severely damaged, but the driver got out on her own and was barely hurt, they had to cut my friend and his brother out of the Festiva. After my friend got his insurance check, he went out and bought his next vehicle, a Chevy Silverado. No more tin boxes for him.
I currently live in Western North Carolina, and see these cars every day, the early boxy ones. Not occasionally, but daily.
We needed an inexpensive car for short trips around town, and for both of us work was about three miles either way. I had a mid seventies Civic that burned a lot of oil, and the carb was shot, not to mention the interior condition.
This was a great replacement, and honestly, that car returned over 40 miles per gallon without trying. We owned it for ten years, and the only repair I paid for was consumables such as tires and brake pads. 12″ tires are cheap, so were the junior sized brake pads. It did go thru a slew of mufflers, but I paid for the “lifetime” guarantee at the local muffler joint, so I was covered. The rear seat came out with four bolts, it was amazing how much stuff that thing would hold. Drove it for ten years, sold it when I saw rust begin to appear on the bottom of the doors.
More than got my nickels worth out of that thing.
Kia used to be Mazda’s Korean Subsidiary until Hyundai acquired Kia which back during the late 1990s Hyundai was closely tied to Mitsubishi, Chrysler and Mercedes Benz which they were collectively known as Daimler.
This was a great car. Solid engine, dependable. Because it was shorter than anything else out there, I could get street parking anywhere in Georgetown DC, any time. Now the Smart car gets those spaces…