Sadness at news that UK’s favourite car is to be axed in 2023
Ford has confirmed that it will end production of the UK’s bestselling car, the Fiesta, next June. The factory in Cologne, where the last Fiestas are made, will switch to producing two new electric models at that time. Ford also confirmed the end of production, in Valencia, of the S-MAX and Galaxy multi-purpose vehicles in April. The Mondeo was axed last year and the Focus will be next (in 2025) as Ford splits into three business units: Model E for electric, Ford Blue for internal-combustion-engine vehicles and Ford Pro for commercials.
More than 47 years since the first Fiestas left the Valencia factory, 22 million have been sold around the world. Of those, 4.8m were in the UK, where it was our top-seller for 12 years from 2009 to 2020. Fiesta production at Dagenham in Essex started in 1977, a year after Valencia, and produced its last Fiesta in 2002. Line worker, Bryn Davey worked at the factory at the time, ‘the affection for the car was huge,’ he said. ‘It was never a glamour model but when Dagenham stopped building it there was real mourning.’
‘More than 22m Fiestas have been sold around the world’
The Fiesta went through seven evolutions and had a huge variety of trim and engine levels, everyone knows someone who owned one from the base level MkI, such as the car PC restored for Vicki Butler Henderson in 2014 (her first car) to the latest ST.
Ford’s switch to electric mobility will see its Cologne plant turned into an EV
