So far, based on the recent flood of production Fiesta (Euro) reviews (US and UK sources) it seems to me that the new Fiesta is a better car overall than Yaris and Fit.
It would seem so. But I'm having doubt that Ford can sell the Fiesta here for what you can get a Yaris or Fit for. Base on those are around $13K.
The exterior design will not change much (if at all). We are in the process of doing the headlight for the NA market and they look identical to the Euro ones..
I think it is essential for Ford to sell the Fiesta slightly lower than the Yaris and Fit with a better feature set, which I don't think is that difficult at all. This is one of the big IFs I have.
The Fit starts at $15K and the Yaris 5dr starts at $14.3K, plus they are total strippers at that price. The top trims, with A/T, which barely cover the basic feature set by today's standards, are $19.4K for Yaris and $20.9K for Fit. Again, I don't see it as difficult to match and beat. The Versa is another example where the fully loaded variant is still cheaper than the Fit and only few hundreds higher than the Yaris, but with significantly more features than both. After all, we all know that Hondas and even Toyotas are overpriced for what you get.
Also, remember that Fiesta will be assembled in Mexico not in Europe so the labor costs are much lower. The ball is in Ford's court and we'll have to wait and see if they play the pricing game right. They need to leave some room for the Focus too so the Fiesta can’t start too high.
On a different topic, after gathering bits and pieces of information from different reviews, I had some thoughts that by the time it gets here, 2010-2011, it may have the 1.4L Ecoboost engine and maybe the dual-clutch transmission. That would be sweet indeed.
