When is the last time you saw a Ford Festiva? Well, if you read Curbside Classic, maybe not all that long ago.
They’ve been featured here, here and here relatively recently. When I saw this one hurtling down the freeway on a recent Sunday, however, I was more than a little surprised, and had my passenger get out his camera phone to take a few snaps. Until I checked CC, I thought this made for a rare sighting!
Somehow, it looked way more futuristic than it had a right to.
It may have been slightly battered, but its tiny size and tidy shape seemed positively forward-thinking, especially considering it’s over 20 years old (I think this is a late example, probably early 1990s.) Who needs a Smart or Scion IQ when you have this?
Maybe it’s because it’s white, but the little Festiva reminded me of a space pod of some kind, busy on its way to some otherworldly destination. And it’s just so LITTLE, hardly seeming longer than its width or height, just like the EVA ball pod from 2001: A Space Odyssey. Would you open the pod bay doors for a Festiva, HAL?
I’m sure its designer (and maybe the somewhat nerdy-looking driver) would be happy with that take. In any case, the little Ford (Mazda) certainly had no trouble keeping up with LA traffic on the Santa Monica freeway, circa 2014. Go, Festiva!
Pre-CC affect in force.
Earlier today, I took my company owned ’07 Silverado to the garage (about 0.2 miles behind the office in the same complex) for a front-end alignment. Walking back, I could see the holding lot for Enterprise car rental two doors down. Amongst the new, unlicensed Kia’s was a blue Festiva. It looked rather out of place, but could tell it was a survivor, just like this white one.
I was out today and ran across one too, though the one I ran across had been given bigger tires, wheels and a “racing stripe” probably from a rattle can.
Given that one of the aliases of this car was the Kia Pride, a row of new Kias was actually a fitting place to find it.
I wouldn’t exactly call these futuristic, Chris, and with your recent classic Honda purchase, it’s surprising you’d say so, but you must see something I don’t. These were noteworthy for their tall packaging when introduced, but not for any progressive styling elements. Love the 2001 reference anyway.
These cars ARE tough little mothers, however, with good suspension travel and an engine which likes to rev. They’re perfect for cut and thrust urban driving in a poorly maintained locale and are a good deal of fun when driven hard.
You have a point, but somehow to me it seems retro-futuristic, more in an odd Blade Runner sort of way than the 2001: Space Odyssey, maybe. I’m sure at the time it wasn’t considered futuristic, and yes, I would agree that Honda was on the leading edge of both styling and technology in the 1980s, if not exactly futuristic. As for the fun-to-drive factor, I never would have guessed! There’s definitely something likeable about the little guy.
My Xbox’s smaller two-door brother.
This Fiestiva shows why California’s reflectorized license plates never hold up as well as their older brethren. At one point the car and the plate were the same color, but now the plate is darker. I wonder how the dent right behind the driver’s door got there? I notice one of the owners (or could this be a one owner car?) has applied extra reflective accessories which is an interesting touch. Looks like there is a San Francisco parking permit on the rear bumper and were hubcaps standard on these vehicles? The tires look a bit on the bald side. I could never really drive with my windows down on LA area highways, the noises bouncing off all the cement hurt my ears.
They had 2 versions of these, a cheapie with the black bumpers and “steelies” and a Festiva LX(?) that had alloys and body colored trim.
According to Wikipedia it’s just as likely to be a Kia. They started making them in 87 and if I read it right most of the US cars were Kia. All designed by Mazda.
It is wearing a blue oval as all of them did in the US, there was no US Kia version of this.
Eric I feel like garbage today so may have misread. It reads to me that Ford made essentially zero of them. Mazda did overseas and IIreadC the Kia imported to Canada and US. Here is a link. I have been wrong before.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ford_Festiva
All Festivas were built by Kia, but they were always badged and sold as Fords. The first Kia to be sold under its own name in the US was the 1994 Sephia, another Mazda derivative.
The fordor version which has only recently ended production are popular here badged Mazda Demio they still use this body shape and likely the original tooling.
I worked with a (very frumpish) woman who drove one of these, not too many years ago. She traded it in for a first gen Ford Focus hatchback saying she was “tired of people honking and flipping me off for going too slow on the freeway.”
She missed the evolutionary dead end for these cars, the never loved Ford Aspire.
Probably one of the worst named cars ever, Aspire? Aspire to what? To own a better? Aspire to get a better job so you wont have to drive this thing?
Or as I call them, “Assfire”. A terrible little pile with all the durability of a wet paper bag.
I remember the Ford Festiva. I thought what better vehicle for shooting around town in than a Festiva. I thought it was better looking than the Ford Fucus that replaced it. While it would’ve been nice to see a 4 door Festiva, its size was perfect for driving in and around town.
The Focus was more of an Escort replacement, the Festiva was a sub-Escort car, like the Chevrolet Sprint/Geo Metro/et al.
I was business manager at a Ford Dealership when the Festiva was new. We sold a bunch of them. The Festiva was replaced by the Aspire and it didn’t sell nearly as well.
Aspires were unreliable POS, exact opposite of these.
The Ford Focus replaced the Ford Escort. The Festiva was restyled in 1994 and called Aspire. That car lasted till 1997. The successor to the Fiesta/Aspire spot in the US Ford lineup is the 2011-Present Fiesta.
These and the Geo/Chevy Metros seem to make a appearance every time gas hits close to $4/gal in my area. There is one in my housing complex in blueish green.
A couple of weeks ago, actually
When gas prices spike it is a good time to shop for gas guzzling curbside classics. At the same time some owners of very shaky gas zippers are trying their best to sell their junk for irrationally high prices.
I have one of these (also white) pass me most mornings on my way to work at 5.30 am. Even more battered than this one with one working headlight (the other one has been smashed) the driver is always in a huge hurry to get where he is going. I’d love to know how many demerit points he has lost.
One of these regularly parks at the church across the street from us. My gf says, “that car doesn’t look too bright.” She’s right. Something about the proportions makes it look like the slow kid in the class.
When those cars came out in the late 80’s, I thought they were Fiestas since Festiva and Fiesta sound similar.
I see those from time to time here. Towing ball included.
The closest I’ve driven is the Saipa141. Much better interior, too soft suspension and good fuel economy no matter how hard you pressed the go pedal.
I remember riding in a grad school classmates’ Festiva back in the late 1980s when it just came out. This was in Washington, DC, so the car was very well suited for urban areas with tight parking spaces. Pretty good space utilization for its small exterior. Wasn’t it originally the Mazda 121 back then (though Korean-built)?
These have pretty much disappeared off the roads in Korea, not because they were unreliable, Koreans simply dislike old things, they have to have the latest and greatest. There is a nascent “classic” or “antique” or
_______________(insert term here) car culture here, mostly enthusiasts of the Hyundai Pony. I remember once about 14 years ago I saw a Mark III Cortina roll by, I did a double take on that one. Euro Fords were made under license by Hyundai until the mid 80s. That included the early 70s Taunus, 3 generations of Cortinas, an the square Granada. Sold in very small numbers to begin with, as only the very well off could buy cars here at that time.
Havent seen one in ages. I had a co worker/buddy back in college who had one of these. It was crude, slow, ugly….but damn if it wasn’t tough. These were the type of car you could buy for a dime, literally ignore all maintenance and yet it would still shclep you along to wherever you wanted to go. And aren’t they good for mpg in the mid-high 40s? Amazing that in near 24 years with all the new electronics and especially that dopey hybrid garbage, these cars were cranking out efficiency that rivals the best of whats out there today. And for a HELL of a lot less money, even adjusted for inflation.
Unfortunately, these things didn’t hold up too well in accidents. While helping a friend locate a rear end for a pickup truck at various junk yards, we noted several that had been severely crunched or crushed in auto accidents. I doubt the driver and/or passenger survived the impact. I applaud the design (small, simple, less is more), but they appeared to lack the capacity to take a hard hit.
I now appreciate the importance of airbags and crash testing.
Saw a red one Saturday. Not too many of them running around n.e. Ohio any more. The only really small car I’ve ever liked.
I still see probably see one or so of these a day here in northern California. Most interesting one was at the drag strip, of all places. The car had been motor swapped with a 4cyl turbo from a 90’s Mercury Capri. All boosted up that car ran a 14 sec quarter – must have been one scary ride!
See these cars all the time. pathetic looking!
I lived with my cousin in the summer of 1993 in Arlington, VA and drove to my job in Georgetown every day using her Festiva, because I could always find a street parking space, as there were no other cars of this size at that time and there were always spaces available that were too small for anyone else. We both saved money; she didn’t have to pay for parking during the day, and I commuted to a congested part of DC very inexpensively.