Ford India is currently enjoying the tremendous success of the EcoSport with a massive waiting list and they have even halted bookings of some variants. This doesn’t mean that the carmaker is not focusing on the rest of the product lineup. The American automaker will launch the Ford Fiesta facelift in India early next year. The slow selling sedan will be repositioned in the Indian market to compete head on with the likes of Hyundai Verna, Honda City, Nissan Sunny, Skoda Rapid and so on.
The styling updates on the Ford Fiesta will include the Aston Martin derived large front grille outlined in chrome along with a revised angular set of headlamps and redesigned bumpers. The rear profile will get a grown up tail lamp cluster with minor changes. Expect the interiors to get some additions too. This time Ford India will have a greater amount of localization, unlike the current model, which will help them in aggressive pricing, which is expected as low as Rs. 6.99 lakhs for the base petrol trim.
The Fiesta shares many parts with the EcoSport and since the latter has been heavily localised in India, Ford won’t find it difficult to share components and reduce cost of production for the facelifted model. In the month of July, Ford managed to sell a meagre 16 units of the Fiesta, while the Classic churned out 400 units.
The mechanical bits under the hood will remain untouched. The current 1.5-litre diesel and petrol engine options will be continued on the upcoming offering and the EcoBoost engine is not expected with the revised model. The 1.5-litre TDCi diesel motor produces 90 BHP of power with 204 Nm of torque. While the 1.5-litre TiVCT petrol engine churns out 108 BHP of power with 140 Nm of torque. Both the engine will be mated to a 5-speed manual gearbox, while the petrol engine will have an option of the 6-speed SpeedShift dual clutch automatic transmission.
