Ford Fiesta Poised To Challenge Segment With Global Design, Quality, Nvh Leadership

* Fiesta will deliver class-leading craftsmanship and quality in the small car segment
* Fiesta incorporates several unique components to deliver superior interior quietness – by 10 percent – in the small car segment
* Well-proven with more than half a million Fiestas in customer hands around the world, Fiesta Movement agents validated the expressive new car by socially documenting their experiences

LOS ANGELES - Ford Fiesta arrives in North America with a globally proven platform and package ready to change customer expectations about small car quality and noise, vibration and harshness (NVH) control.

“Fiesta is all about design, performance and fuel economy benefits,” said Steve Pintar, chief nameplate engineer. “Fiesta doesn’t ask a customer to compromise quality or refinement.”

Smartened-up, not dumbed-down
Ford accelerates its global product development strategy with Fiesta, where vehicles are developed from the outset to appeal to customers in all markets where Ford competes. Fiesta is yet another ONE Ford vehicle and foreshadows the next global Focus.

Fiesta arrives with kinetic design, a successful global platform crafted from high-strength steels and minor detail improvements. Its rigid body structure was adapted to meet unique North American safety standards while honoring the global design language. Engineers then tweaked it to be even quieter.

“The performance and driving dynamics of the European model have been preserved,” said Pintar. “We added the revolutionary new PowerShift transmission to reach 40 miles per gallon and made the car quieter. The North American Fiesta represents the best of our global efforts.”

Great package gets quieter
North American Fiestas include NVH control enhancements that improve on global market versions with additional sound baffles and the relocating of the antennae to the rear of the roof panel for wind noise reduction.

Fiesta’s biggest single North America-specific NVH control feature is the acoustic laminate windshield, designed to reduce interior noise levels. This class-exclusive feature is unexpected in the Fiesta competitive set. In addition, the North American Fiesta offers the hood blanket developed for the European-market diesel version, offering an additional noise buffer.

Specific door seals were developed for North America, providing tighter closures and contributing to reduced wind noise. These seals have been integrated into the global Fiesta.

Fiesta noise also is reduced by a downward-facing hidden-tip exhaust tailpipe and a headliner developed to absorb and mitigate potentially intrusive sounds.

Globally proven, Fiesta Movement validated
More than 500,000 Fiestas have been sold around the world. But before a single customer took delivery, Fiesta earned its stripes in extensive durability testing. While the shift to computer-aided engineering has reduced development time and the number of prototypes built, the durability testing became more stringent. Prototype Fiestas logged more than 2 million miles of on-road testing finishing with 20 production-level vehicles placed among worldwide test customers, considered high mileage accumulators, logging up to 60,000 miles per year.

Fiesta was subjected to more than 550 component and system laboratory tests to verify durability, functionality, serviceability and sustainability over the vehicle’s lifetime. Doors, liftgate and hood were each operated more than 300,000 times in real-world conditions including dirt, dust, salt and humidity across a variety of temperature ranges and extremes.

The goal: Use those tests to help create an on-road life of 10 years and 150,000 miles. Then it became a movement.

A social media thing
Ford kicked off the Fiesta Movement 11 months before the car’s North American introduction. The Fiesta Movement, a Ford social media program, put European-spec Fiestas in the hands of 100 socially vibrant people, those using the internet to tweet, Facebook, blog and post video.

Fiesta Agents delivered with benefits.

To date, Fiesta agents have driven more than 1.2 million miles while performing athletic, cultural and philanthropic missions, then blogging and posting video clips about their experiences. Fiesta buzz is building on a foundation of social media word-of-mouth interactions.

Fiesta recognition stands at 58 percent among those that consider themselves a potential B-segment prospect – impressive for a global nameplate unavailable in North America since 1980.

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About Ford Motor Company
Ford Motor Company, a global automotive industry leader based in Dearborn, Mich., manufactures or distributes automobiles across six continents. With about 200,000 employees and about 90 plants worldwide, the company’s automotive brands include Ford, Lincoln, Mercury and Volvo. The company provides financial services through Ford Motor Credit Company. For more information regarding Ford’s products, please visit www.ford.com.