Off for 10 days in the Canaries - soak up some rays! (Don't forget 10th April is first Motogp race...
Off for 10 days in the Canaries - soak up some rays! (Don't forget 10th April is first Motogp race. Watch Rossi & co. dooking it out). I will return........................ ......
Member since:22.02.2005
Reviews:13
Members who trust:8
The Mark 1 Fiesta, now there's a blast from the past. Are there any left on the road - I haven't seen one for ages. Perhaps they've finally passed a law against them.
In 1992 I bought a Fiesta 1.3 Mk2 Ghia but this only lasted a short while until some low-life nicked it. Its (meant to be temporary) replacement, a 1980 1.1 Mk 1, was bought on the quick for £90. This turned out to be a much better car than I thought and I ran it for about 5 years. The car came with assorted furry dice and trogs and turned out to be the seller's wife's car, which he'd decided to 'out' due to its age and condition. Oh, how she cried when I drove 'Tinkerbell' away (don't forget those old cars had souls and feelings).
After the Ghia, the standard car felt like a complete dog with its lack of sound-proofing, proper carpets and comfy seats. It even had a four-speed gearbox!!
Anyway, Tinkerbell and me got on just fine and the car turned out to be extremely reliable except for the old bogey of cold starts, which the old girl wasn't keen on. Fortunately, it took me only about two weeks to establish a good Ford-startup ritual and, unless the weather was exceptionally damp, she was quickly up and running.
The engine seemed to be the original unit and burned oil like there was no tomorrow - what it didn't burn it spat out through the breather pipe. After about 18 months I decided to fit a recon. engine by Euro-Engines over in Essex. This costs the princely sum of £100 and a new clutch went in at the same time. I can recommend this company - that engine went 100,000 before it needed a new camchain but there was still life in the crankshaft and piston group. By the way, sticking camchain tensioners are the achilles heel of the Fiesta engine and can result in a good chain clattering around like a completely knackered one. The repair is not an easy job to carry out as the engine mount is in the way of the cam cover.
Fiesta gearboxes aren't too clever on any variant but this one was a four-speed with a low top gear, which meant the engine screamed like a banshee at any speed above 75 mph - I cared not - and still maintained the 85 mph cruise speed I had on the Ghia. In this car there is little or no linkage between the gearlever and the box so changes are sweeter than on the sportier models, That gearbox went on for ever.
In the handling stakes the Fiesta was a great one for chucking around corners, which it negotiated in its own bucking-bronco style. Suspension travel seemed very limited, in the vein of a 1960s Mini or Anglia.
Fuel consumption, as you might expect, was low and the car sipped fuel at the rate of 55 mpg on motorways, returning around 38 mpg in town.
The braking system was adequate for the job but the self-adjusters at the back rarely worked. The front brakes were very prone to seizure and required cleaning and 'Copperslipping' once a year.
Fiestas were one of the last cars to have good all-round visibility and this is an area in which the Mk1 excelled - there were no headrests to get in the way either.
The twist to this tale is that, when I finally sold the car, it went to a young lady similar to the one I had bought it from. She seemed delighted to hear the car had a long-standing name and bought it there and then. Wonder if she filled it with furry dice and trogs?
Well, there's no more I can say about this low-tech car, except that it does its intended job with little fuss and little expenditure of the 'hard earned'.
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My Grandad had one of these. You could unlock the door with the key from our house! Security wasn't it's thing. It got stolen once but as the clutch was shagged we found it at the end of the nearest hill.
nikki14 10.04.2005 15:08
Good detailed review, I chose a Ford Ka xxx
vickiuk 02.04.2005 16:33
Great review, love the title, Take care, Vicki :o)
Mar 2nd, 2005
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