Top Ten Fast Fiestas
The cult of the hot hatch just wouldn’t be the same without fast Fords. Even if you’re a die-hard follower of the Golf, the 205 or the Civic (or any number of other options), it can’t be denied that Ford has always put incredible effort into making performance affordable for the person on the street, and the Fiesta sits in the centre of this game-plan. Whether it’s feisty XR2s skulking in your local drive-thru or your grandma pootling to the shops in a Popular Plus, memories of the Ford Fiesta will be inextricably intertwined with your past, which is unsurprising given that the model popped into the top-ten bestseller list back in 1977 and has pretty much stayed there ever since – it’s an enduring love affair, we just can’t get enough. And given that this year marks the 40th anniversary of the XR2’s launch, we wanted to pull together a greatest-hits of fast Fiestas, from those halcyon days of 1981 right up to the present moment. Enjoy the ride.
Mk1 XR2
The 1973 oil crisis did a lot to shake up the global car market. But even before then, Ford had been looking into the development of a small, frugal model to tap into a shifting consumer mindset – and they were going in hard, with the brief to create ‘the most outstanding small car the world had ever seen’. Project Bobcat was the result; a pint-sized hatchback with a new version of the ‘Kent’ crossflow engine, named ‘Valencia’ in honour of the shiny new Spanish factory Ford built to produce the Fiesta. The public lapped it up, with over a million being sold by 1980. As was Ford’s style, a whole range of specifications were available, from the spartan base model to the slightly-less-grim Popular, the L, GL and S, Ghia (which had velour seats and simulated walnut burr trim!), and the peppy Supersport. But the real fun started with the XR2, with its 1.6-litre
