The new Ford Fiesta (petrol) comes all geared up to pose a challenge to the Honda City. Will the City fight back or give in easily? We try to find out
Driving down the Pune-Mumbai expressway for the umpteenth time, I couldn’t help wondering if an invisible line separated a highway car from a city car. A car which is sturdy and steady at high speed and a car which carries the passengers through the city’s hustle and bustle as if in a palanquin. But then, there are certain pre-requisites that a car must fulfil on both the highway and within the city – good looks, good fuel economy, ride quality and driveability. The question is whether car-makers keep one of these qualities as their object and develop their cars around it, making a compromise on the rest of the points, or whether they actually give equal importance to all these attributes and work towards a complete package. The answer is simple. Those who adopt the former approach limit their target audience and those who believe in the latter address their target audience in entirety.
After about four years of unchallenged supremacy in the mid-size petrol sedan segment, the Honda City has been challenged by another player, the new Ford Fiesta, which boasts of a ‘funkier’ styling, better interior and much improved drive quality. The challenge has been accepted and the result would be decided on the skills and performance shown by both the players.
Exterior And Interior
The new Ford Fiesta certainly looks like nothing the Indian market has seen before. The styling is very futuristic and would appeal to the young looking for a change from the usual swaying lines and long frames. Those petal-like stretched headlamps, body-coloured bumpers, a matte black front grille wearing the Ford emblem in the middle and trapezoid lower grille set within fog-lamps on both the sides – all these announce the arrival of the new Fiesta sedan straight from the international market. The design is the same as that of the Ford Fiesta super-mini globally, but with a small boot at the rear. Compared to the bejewelled front, the rear of the car looks rather simple, consisting of tail-lamps shaped like raised doe-eyes and a sharply curved arch to lift the boot. Fifteen-inch wheels fit the wheel-arches well and give the car a proportionate look.
The Honda City, on the other hand, comes with the tried and tested formula of a perfect mix of lines and edges that lend the car its sophisticated yet macho look. The basic theory that works in the longevity of a car’s design is ‘minimalism’. The more simple and old-school, the better it is.
Open the door of the new Fiesta and you have a loaded dash waiting to be explored. The quality of the plastic and the fit-and-finish of the interior could have been better, though. Dual tone throughout the cabin with silver trims looks like a genuine attempt to add a sci-fi feel to the car’s cockpit, but the company seems to have gone a little overboard with it. The dash comprises a multimedia interface just above the a-c vents, with numerous buttons underneath to play with. The menu with its folder-within-a-folder setting demands a lot of driver’s attention and it is highly recommended not to fiddle around while on the move. Steering-mounted controls make surfing through radio channels and other such tasks easier and the car even boasts of being the only one in the segment with cruise control. A small cubbyhole under the air temperature controls does store away the tid-bits, but doesn’t lend itself to any major use. As a matter of fact, the storage space throughout the cabin feels inadequate, including that in the boot. The meter cluster just above the steering wheel is shaped like two eyes and looks magnificent at night. The Fiesta has ample leg room in the front and headroom at both the front and the rear, but the car suffers in knee-room at the rear. The hand-rest on the rear seats is rather awkwardly placed and feels too high for one to rest one’s elbow.
Against this, the City might have a simpler cabin, but every inch of the cabin speaks of good quality and fit-and-finish. The car has the most basic features that one would expect, but the quality of the knobs and buttons is first-class. To match that, the car also has a very good seating area, with ample legroom for the rear seats and a cavernous boot.
Drive And Handling
Now is the time to see which of these two has more juice and is a mechanical marvel. The Ford Fiesta comes with a 1.5-litre Ti-VCT engine and promises to deliver a peak power of 110 PS at 6,045 RPM and a maximum torque of 140 Nm at 4,500 RPM. The Honda City, on the other hand, comes loaded with a 1.5-litre i-VTEC engine and delivers a peak power of 118 PS at 6,600 RPM and a maximum torque of 146 Nm at 4,600 RPM. The difference in the power and torque figures speaks for itself. What is surprising here is that despite achieving the maximum power and torque at comparatively lower RPM than the City, the Fiesta doesn’t perform as well as its competitor. Besides, the Fiesta is heavier by 21 kg, because of which the low power figure takes its toll on city driveability. Because of a weak low and mid range, the car demands frequent gear shifts. The 0-100 km/h acceleration test showed that the Fiesta lagged behind the City by about 1.5 seconds.
Nevertheless, the Fiesta scores on all counts in the handling department. Its steering is precise and sharp and its negligible body roll makes it go round corners with great confidence. The Fiesta’s stiff suspension shows its merits and demerits in one go. On the one hand, it gives the car a good handling and stability, but, on the other, the ride quality goes for a toss. The seats with their curled up sides offer comfort to the arms, too, and hand-rests are not missed much.
As for the City’s handling and ride quality, its handling may not be as sharp as the Fiesta’s and the car may feel to be a little on the soft side, but that doesn’t make it any less stable either. The softness rather makes it comfortable to drive within the city.
Fuel Economy
The Honda City’s i-VTEC engine is surely more efficient than the Fiesta’s. Delivering nine PS more than the rival and returning 17.7 km to a litre (against the Fiesta’s 11.5 km), the City creates a win-win situation for the driver in terms of both performance and fuel-efficiency. While gearing up for this big fight, I believe the first and foremost consideration for the company should have been making the engine efficient. With good fuel-efficiency, the battle is half won, especially in a market like India.
The Verdict
The battle has been a rather close one, but the verdict is clear. Priced at Rs 10.61 lakh (OTR, Pune) for the variant we drove (Titanium+), the Fiesta is dearer by almost Rs 70,000 than the City and this doesn’t seem to work in its favour. The Fiesta may well be considered the second choice in the segment, but it doesn’t get to wear the crown. The car is sporty from the way it looks to the way it drives and is power-packed too, but not enough to dethrone the segment leader.
So the final word is that the new Ford Fiesta is a good car with nearly all the right ingredients, but pales in comparison with the Honda City. An engine tweak and a little more attention to the interior might tilt this balance in the future.
1. The Fiesta scores on all counts in the handling department
2. The Honda City’s i-VTEC engine is surely more efficient than the Fiesta’s
Story: Gasha Aeri
Photography: Sanjay Raikar
