As we reported yesterday, the outlook isn’t too hot for the Ford Fiesta’s continuous sale in the United States, with Ford Germany B-segment Vehicle Program Manager Robert Stiller telling Romanian outlet 0-100Â recently: “With the new generation, we are targeting only Europe, the Middle East, and Africa. In North America, especially the US, China, and Latin America, the demand for such vehicles is declining, and we are reacting accordingly.”
However, there is still hope for some 2018Â Ford Fiesta models infiltrating the US. After 0-100‘s piece came out, Road & Track reached out to Ford for comment, being told by one spokesperson: “Fiesta continues to play an important role in our portfolio. We’ll have more to say about Fiesta in markets outside of Europe at a later date.”
That response doesn’t quite give anything away, but it does leave the door open to some redesigned Ford Fiesta models arriving in the United States – and especially, we would think, the performance-oriented Fiesta ST hot hatch. The outgoing Fiesta ST, though never reaching the same level of popularity in the US as the larger Focus ST, has still sold in somewhat surprising numbers. Moreover, its function in the US market has always been as more of a halo car than a sales star, meant to drum up excitement for the Blue Oval – not necessarily fly out of the showrooms.
US-market Fiestas are currently built at Ford’s Cuautitlán Assembly Plant in Mexico, but in all likelihood, that plant won’t continue producing the B-segment car past the sixth-generation. However, as Road & Track notes, Ford in the US could quite easily import the all-new Ford Fiesta ST from the Cologne plant in Germany, much as it imports the Focus RS from Germany’s Saarlouis plant.
Hang in there, American hot hatch enthusiasts; there’s hope yet.
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