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Fiesta SportVan
Page 55
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INhen Ford offered us a date to drive the Fiesta SportVan it happened to coincide with the Kortrijk Trailer 07 show.And so it was that CM's scribbler-and-snapper team were to be found ensconced in a small hatchvan driving through southern Belgium.
Actually, Ford is no more immune to mission creep than any other manufacturer and today's Fiesta is significantly larger than its predecessors—something to bear in mind while driving around country lanes on the wrong side of the road. As a result, our pair of salad dodgers found plenty of personal space.
Unlike the Transit SportVan, which doesn't do subtle, the Fiesta is innocuous in appearance from a distance. Only when you get closer do you spot the 16in alloy wheels, colour-coded body kit and discreet SPORT badge on the tailgate.
Once inside, however, you're surrounded by numerous 'big-ear' features, such as half-leather sports seats. electric windows and mirrors, remote central doublelocking, a good-quality radio/CD/MP3 player with iPod input and comprehensive instrumentation including a trip computer.
A few hundred quid more will get you the optional heated windscreen, auto lights and wipers and air-con that we enjoyed. It also came with extremely easy-to-set-up Bluetooth mobile phone integration.
The optional mesh upper bulkhead was fitted; a rear window mesh is also available.
The loadspace provides just over 1m= of volume (1,320mm long and up to 957mm high) without an outrageously sloping rear to hamper its appetite for big boxes. But they'd need to be light boxes: the net payload is a modest 543kg from a CIVW of 1,605kg.The key to the Sport nomenclature lies under the bonnet, where the 90PS 16-valve version of the 1..4TDCi engine is hued, giving 22hp and 44Nm more than the standard 68PS eight-valver.
Since our outing in the SportVan we've driven the lower-rated engine in another product, and the extra output does make the difference between just adequate and quite enough for long-distance travel.
Although the gearbox has just five ratios the torque spread is such that effortless progress is easily made, even when full of cameras and French plonk. Handling is what you'd expect from a small, powerful vehicle running on big, wide tyres, but ride and refinement are remarkably civilised.
If you need justification for a Fiesta SportVan. tell the accountant it has more payload than the ordinary model (you don't have to explain that it's only 2kg more).