Ford (US) - Fiesta (Mk1) - Vehicle Sales Training - A Whole New Dimension in Driving (1977)

[@rianmcfie7633]

I bought one of these new. It was cheap fun little ride.

[@dibrandembabadem7091]

Nice car!Thanks for the video ROVR!🙋

[@alexkenya7406]

This guy made me love the Fiesta

[@bll425]

12:07 passing situation almost caused a head-on collision! 🚗💥

[@horseathalt7308]

Trained drivers on a closed course.

[@manthony225]

I had a used one in the 80's. Loved that car. White with an orange stripe on the sides.

[@Ribeirasacra]

Rovr said "I can see the bumpers and headlights are different from the European version - Are there any more differences? - comment below!" The round headlights were used on the European XR2 version. The US versions powered by with the 1596cc Kent crossflow engine. Again this was made available in the European XR2 versions. Cars sold in California had more emission controls too.

[@pb5x5]

Side lights front and back, Ford oval badge not on the grill (replaced with Ford in words on the right).

[@Tedroy]

I had one. Great car. I took it off road a few times for fishing.

[@RayEttler]

12:04 perfect example on how to safely pass a truck in a low powered vehicle on an uphill road 👍

[@SantiagoS-mz4zz]

Satire! 😅

[@horseathalt7308]

Trained drivers on a closed back canyon road...remember this was an internal video and not for public viewing so they didnt need legal disclaimers...back then even in advertising legal disclsimers were still rare...how nice when lawyers didnt stunt commerce

[@mcqueenfanman]

Like in that James Bond movie.

[@thedeadstig123]

I do wonder why the Fiesta didn't sell in america considering the VW Rabbit/golf sold so well, the fiesta only lasted 3 years before been pulled from sales and it didn't return until the late 2000s

[@DIYPanda1]

It's a fair bit smaller. It's wasn't seen as a competitor to the golf in the UK, that was the Escort.

[@Ribeirasacra]

The American market never got the Polo which was one of tech European competitor. The Renault 5 never sold well in the USA either.

[@RayEttler]

@@Ribeirasacra they had the late-to-the-party brasil made fox which is quite an equivalent to the european polo 86c

[@horseathalt7308]

Also the dealers wanted to upsell to make more money...when you went in looking for the fiesta they woukd try and sell you the more expensive slightly bigger but far crappier fairmont.

[@carwrtr1]

Fiesta and Escort are two different classes.

[@wtdash]

Had an '80 'S'port model for 4 years in the mid-80s. Multiple trips from PNW to Denver (ski bum years) w/out major issues. The 12" tires wore out quickly - my spirited driving habits didn't help. Main issue - others have reported- was it would get 'vapor lock' and wouldn't run right on occasion. I learned to stop and remove the fuel filter (yeah, real safe on a hot engine), to release the pressure and then it would run OK. Updated the carb and intake, but didn't really help power much. Overall, a good 1st car!

[@rob_lightbody]

Had no idea the fiesta made it to the US. Would have been tiny compared to American cars of the time. Headrest is between his shoulders...

[@watershed44]

@Rob Lightbody Brock was a pretty big guy. I think he was at least 6 ft tall. Which for that time in the USA was very very tall. I would bet most adult men in the USA at that time might have been 5' 9 or so on average.

[@Progrocker70]

Yes but just three years, '78-'80. The Escort effectively replaced it and the Pinto for '81.

[@manthony225]

The Chevy Chevette, Dodge Omni amd Plymouth (Mitsubishi) Champ were around the same size and sold in the US at the time

[@20alphabet]

Lol, yes. It was tiny.

[@greg9404]

Honda Civic was smaller at the time, and it sold well.

[@duniber]

I have a VV carburetor, how many turns to set the needle correctly?

[@nlpnt]

11:05 Odd to see the block is black and not Ford Engine Blue.

[@Zolega89]

Was it good?

[@georgehale3640]

The best Fiesta of all, but I think that those bumpers and headlights made the mk1 uglier compared to its European counterpart.

[@greg9404]

"Economy of operation" is said quite often here. I don't believe that's the case anymore for the cars of today.

[@20alphabet]

Lol, you can say that again!

[@saxongreen78]

Geez...the 'Sport Group' options package makes the other two seem pretty lame - spring rates were probably still too soft, though.

[@JJVernig]

13:22 it cornered better than a lot of other fars of the era. It was a European car after all.

[@20alphabet]

Even with the standard 12" tires it handled better than most cars up until the mid 1990s.

[@nlpnt]

These cars were imported from Europe and sold decently well for how expensive they were due to the weak $/DM situation. Still, the American Escort replaced it as well as the Pinto.

[@kippaseo8027]

So I was born in 1980 and growing up I'd loved and was very Car aware. I honestly don't remember this car at all. I do remember the Ford Festiva which was just a re badged kia From Korea built for ford But these must have been pretty crapy Or had been sales bombs if there were none of them around by the time I became coherent? II remember the AMC Gremlin and pacer And even the shitty yugo But I don't remember the fiesta

[@manthony225]

They were Awesome. I had one in Pa in the 80's. You couldn't get one with an automatic. Maybe that hurt sales. Also, Ford didn't want them taking sales from the Escort so it was gone after 1980

[@20alphabet]

They were great cars if you could keep them from overheating, and the oil pump from failing.

[@jdunlap2]

I bought one of the first ones in the country in 78, an S model with A/C. Drove it as a daily for the next 7 years while my triplet girls were growing up in the back seat. In 85, bought a used Volvo wagon as a daily and the Fiesta became my autocross car. Modified it to within an inch of it life and campaigned it for another 5 years before selling to a competitor. He campaigned it another 5 years before lost track of him. Great, fun, competitive car. Wish I still had it.

[@RayEttler]

0:39 no american flag - so much for the will to succeed! or you could just look at it from the other side: european styling/practicality/quality! (as a selling point for those who like stereotypes)

[@SantiagoS-mz4zz]

Also no 🇪🇸 Spanish flag when this car was manufactured in Spain.

[@watershed44]

@@SantiagoS-mz4zz I think that the US marketing people only wanted people to concentrate on the fact that is was a design of Ford of Germany at that time. If they hinted at the Spanish production it might have been confusing to US buyers since all Fiesta MKI at that time sold in the USA through Ford Motor Company were from the German Ford plant. That's not to say that some odd Grey Market units didn't come into the country from Spain or some other orgin.

[@gotham61]

They were trying to emphasize its European-ness.

[@gotham61]

@@SantiagoS-mz4zz I think the flag between the French and Finnish flags is a washed out looking Spanish flag.

[@scottirvine121]

Front end for USA I don’t like as much

[@horseathalt7308]

I agree the bumpers were mandated due to stupid DOT federal safety laws at the time. We could not have anything but sealed beam headlamps at the time either. LOL Many here in the USA threw out the sealed beams got the European aftermarket Hella 7" rounds with H4 bulbs and the little parking lamp bulb t4w integrated into the reflector housing! Same ones used on the Fiesta XR in Europe.

[@gotham61]

I drove my mother's 1976 Fiesta for about a year in the 80s. One of the first ones made. Absolute poverty spec, with base level trim and the low compression version of the 957cc engine. It was dayglo green though! That car was completely unbreakable. I would bomb across France with my foot on the floor from a full tank until it was empty again.

[@kbatzler]

My father had a 1977 Fiesta Ghia. I learned to drive with this car....was my father's favorite car he ever owned. It was peppy and handled well. The tires being Michelin XZX was 155SR12....an odd ball size even then. Other than replacing the water pump at 95k, the car proved to be very reliable. It had over 120,000 miles when it was lost to an accident (rear-ended and pushed into a truck).

[@greg9404]

The Ghia was the best. Aluminum wheels even! How rare was that in the '70s?

[@mcqueenfanman]

Come on Brock, all you're thinking about is the next Cannon Ball Run.

[@sx64man]

I had two of the 1976 models - canary yellow I bought new and a grey one for parts after the crash.... don't underestimate the solidness of the car lol. A Volvo hit me left font to left front on a snowy Vermont country road - the bumper snapped but the Volvo was towed and the crunched Fiesta drove away... I always carried two extra voltage regulators and it would (overh)eat them on long trips.

[@rseabrk1]

Fiesta was available in 1978.

[@horseathalt7308]

@@rseabrk1 Actually they were selling them during the 1977 sales year, in limited parts of the US. National sales at all US Ford dealers started in 1978. Most people never knew this, a rare slow roll out of a car in the USA during this time.

[@tenfourproductionsllc]

Had way more advanced technology than the Chevette, which was outdated the moment it was introduced in 1976, but yet, Chevy sold a ton of them while the Fiesta just didn't sell at all in the states.

[@watershed44]

@spatrick1964 A big problem was that the US division of Ford didn't want to promote a product that wasn't made here, plus the dealers would always try and upsell customers to the Fairmont which was bigger but much more expensive and with terrible quality and performance too but they did it because of the higher profit margin on them and bigger chunk of change for the salesmen. Chevette was a domestic but was a literal rolling turd, horrid to drive, unreliable, and terrible quality they were size competitors as well dimensions being very close. If I was in that market back then I would have chosen the Fiesta hands down because it was a much better car for about the same price.

[@carwrtr1]

Fiesta was better than Chevette!

[@RedNekLvr22]

I never heard anyone describe the Chevette as "...outdated the moment it was introduced...", but I think that is the most accurate description I've ever heard of it. It was a truly a horrible car and so clearly never given much though when designed. This Fiesta care reminds me so much of my 1990 Fors Festiva L-Plus I had when I was 16. Lots of interior room and lots of cargo room for its size, and a cute, fun, and cheap car to own. I do think, in spite of the lesser tech of the time, the Fiesta's motor was probably a better motor. The 1.0 litre aluminum engine of my Festiva was not peppy and was worse with the 3-speed auto that my car had.

[@Progrocker70]

@@RedNekLvr22 The RWD layout of the Chevette made it outdated. It sold well even well into the '80s, but I think a lot of that was the low price and Chevy name. By that time it had a lot of better, updated FWD competitors.

[@manthony225]

@@Progrocker70 When the Chevette was introduced, most cars were rear drive. The only front drive small cars were Honda, VW Rabbit and the Le Car.

[@ENDTIMEsVideoLibrary]

When's the last time you saw one of THESE on the road?!!

[@buddyweiser8508]

I actually have one that was my grandfathers in decent shape. However in my nearly 30 years of ownership I’ve never seen another one. I occasionally search the web to find one for sale, and I normally only find 1 every 3 years or so. They seem to be quite rare in the U.S., I’d guess there to be only around 100 left in the whole country. The parts situation these days sucks as well, about the only place to find parts is in Europe.

[@20alphabet]

@@buddyweiser8508 Wanna sell it?

[@RoadCone411]

Even Brock must have known that the Honda Civic was a better car...but Ford was paying the bills, so there you go! He certainly didnt look comfortable in the back seat.

[@horseathalt7308]

It was a tighter squeeze into the same model year Civic, actually brock would NOT have been able to get into the 77 Civic rear seat at all.

[@RoadCone411]

@@horseathalt7308 I didn’t think the Civic back seat was particularly small for the class of car. It was no limousine and certainly not a place you’d want to spend a significant amount of time but that could be said about just about every cheap 1970s runabout. Am I to believe that a man could get into a Fiesta back seat (with some doing) and not at all into a Civic rear seat? I don’t know about that.

[@jkpindahbc]

Had one of these as my first car in high school in the late 80s (after Mom ruined it). It was a real POS. Would break down in the same spot every day coming home from school. When it worked, it was a fun drive.

[@horseathalt7308]

@ROVR *Wow...where did you find this?!? Thanks so much for uploading. I was a few years too young to be into cars when this car arrived in the USA but always wanted one. Do you know what location this was filmed at? It looks a lot like Porter Valley Country Club in Porter Ranch, California. My family lived minutes away in Granada Hills in 1977*...I would have figured this kind of sales training video would have gone in the garbage bin years ago..amazing it survived.

[@mcqueenfanman]

I did hear that these were the fastest Fords you could buy in the late 70s.

[@20alphabet]

Mine was a 1980, used but straight. In the mid 1990s I drove it from Pasadena to Claremont on a dollar's worth of gas. Like all in the USA, it had the 1600 engine. That little car would do 0-50 in 8 seconds, and cruise at 75 on the freeway like it was meant to. Very surprising little car.

[@mcqueenfanman]

@@20alphabet When I was a kid in the 80s a guy in town had one, it was the tuner type car. He was racing all over town and doing fed burnouts 😂😅😂.