Given that the Festiva was one of the shortest cars ever sent here, you’d think that its roof rack would at least run the full length of it short roof. That’s ridiculous. And what exactly would fit up there? A couple of oversize purses? But the odd thing is that when I ran into this, it reminded my of another Festiva I shot a year ago, with the exact opposite issue:
Try three 18′ pikes.. Back when I had my Festiva (new) I was doing English Civil War reenactment, first as a pikeman, later as a musketeer. I made a pair of roof racks out our 2×2 lumber and strapped the unit’s pikes to them. The butt was even with the back bumper, so the heads ran about four feet before the front bumper. I noticed I never had a problem with the little old blue hairs doing 20mph under the speed limit in front of me. I could just ease the car close and tap their back windows with the pike heads.
Unfortunately, I lost any pictures I had of the rig.
Maybe I notice them as a former owner, but I’m pretty sure I see more Festivas on the road than I do examples of all the other relics from the cheap car craze of the ’80s. There seem to be more Festivas left running than Sprints, Excels, Justys, Metros, Chevettes, Foxes, LeManses, Aspires and boxy Sentras combined.
I still see quite a few Metros on the road a Festivia and an Aspire occasionally but I can’t remember the last time I’ve seen the rest.
I guess the top isn’t any smaller those racks that people used to slap on the back of old British roadsters.
Never did anything quite that extreme. Did hire a guy once that swept chimneys. He carried a 32 foot extension ladder (16’collapsed) on a pinto wagon.
My wife had one of these, she called it her “little bar-bitch puddle jumper”.
I’m surprized on that short rack they don’t just strap a Rubbermaid tub on there and use it as a trunk. There’s already a baby seat in the back!
The Festiva is one of those really rare, super good little cars. I had one in Korea, a Kia Pride and mine was a well used 1.3 litre two door hatch. Power nothing but it was surprisingly clean as the first owner had kept it fairly well (by Koreans standards circa 1996, that is!). It had like 150,000 km on it when I got it but lordy was that thing a stalwart trooper. Five people and all their gear crammed in it and up some mountain for a hike. I’d floor it in second gear to get up hills and it never wavered. I actually went not too bad with only one person and it was a hoot to drive because it was so raw, only power brakes. I had it for over a year, ran the bag off of it and sold it to another happy waygook. They had cult status in Korea due to their ability to withstand abuse.
The design was a complete copy of the Mazda 121. In those days, Korea’s car industry often bought complete, obsolete, factories from Japan and most of Kia’s early models were that way. They were all really over engineered cars for the expected rough conditions. I am sure there are still loads of them on the roads in Korea today.
Are there Roger?
Agree totally. That little Kia did one hell of a job for me. And I spent the money on the higher end model, so it wasn’t a complete penalty box inside.
Only complaint I had about the car was that it came equipped with Yokahama tyres that I swear were made of bakelite. Lasted forever, but had absolutely no grip in the wet. I lost control of the car on 3-4 occasions in a driving rain, while driving with a reasonable amount of caution on a straight road. Fortunately never hit anything.
Mine came on Yokohamas too. I had the base FestivaL model, so they were 145R12s instead of the 165/70SR12s on your fancy car. I got 3,500 miles out of the fronts and 6,500 miles out of the rears, but my commute to work involved a road called 21 curves and I knew them all. My fist replacement tires were Pirelli P4s in 155SR12 size. They overheated and the tread chunked. I had better luck with Continental CS21s in the same size. Since the internet was the future, one pretty much had to buy what was available locally. I couldn’t find 165/70s or 145s anywhere.
Long before Al Gore invented the internet there was Tirerack and phones and Tirerack had nearly every tire they offered listed in most issues of car magazines like C&D and R&T. I bought my first tires from them in the mid 80’s.
It wasn’t a copy of the 121 it was a 121 just like the Excel was a Colt. Back then the Korean gov’t was looking to industrialize their nation and looked to Japanese companies to do a joint venture with. The Japanese company supplied the cast off platform, and sometimes parts, for a portion of the profit for 13 years at which point their involvement ended.
The reason for the short roof rack is obvious to me: It leaves room for a sunroof!