A vintage Car and Driver article from July 1992 came across my desk the other day that made my smile ear-to-ear. It is this comparison article on 12 compact economy cars that pitted twelve sub $10k crapboxes against each other with an assortment of college kids deciding which car they would be caught dead in. […]
The Ford line up is chock full of automobiles whose name start with the letter F: F150, Focus, Fiesta, Fusion, and Flex. Back in the late 80’s and early 90’s, the Festiva name plate was the bottom rung on the car ladder. The owner of this aqua hatch sums things up well when he says […]
This next post is dedicated to the memory of Leonard “Route 29 Batman” Robinson who died in a freak accident last month, but not before he brought cheer to thousands of sick kids in his Lamborghini– read more on the NYTimes here. The appeal of the Batman is that he is just an ordinary guy. […]
Of the three Festivas taking up space in the Daily Turismo archives (next to budget Corvettes and a Miata with an insufferable identity crisis), all have had engine swaps. This is because the stock 1.3-liter Mazda-sourced engine was worth only 58 horsepower. That’s torture even Dick Cheney wouldn’t approve of. Once you double that output and […]
It’s easy to sell a car short based on what it isn’t. This Festiva isn’t powered by a Chevy V8. It isn’t a 1.6L turbo-powered race car, or an AWD conversion from a 323 GTX. Put simply, this funbox is just a ratty hatch with double its stock output thanks to a sideways Miata engine. […]
The first generation Ford Festiva was a subcompact econobox designed by Mazda during Ford’s time at the reigns, but built in Japan by Mazda and in Korea by Kia. It was available with a variety of Mazda 1.1 to 1.3 liter BJ series 4-cylinder engines and was extremely slow when new. Needless to say, some […]
The first generation Ford Festiva was a subcompact econobox penaltybox that shared a common Mazda designed platform with the Mazda 121 and Kia Pride. Stock versions of the Festiva in no way resembled anything festive, but with the proper application of the “Jay Leno” treatment, such as done to his Ford Festiva Shogun, we’ve learned […]