Ford has announced that the Fiesta will be discontinued in summer 2023, more than four decades after the nameplate first appeared
Some 47 years after its European launch, the Ford Fiesta is set to disappear from the Ford range by next summer. Despite years of market domination, the Fiesta no longer plays a role in the UK’s top ten bestseller list, while its main rival – the Vauxhall Corsa – continues to top the sales charts.
The Fiesta’s fall from grace is Europe-wide, with 2022 sales (to the end of August) being 45 per cent down on last year. In August alone, the Fiesta failed even to make the European top 50 list, selling just 2735 units throughout Europe that month.
Since it first went on sale in mainland Europe in 1976, nearly five million Fiestas have been sold and it has constantly ranked among the top UK sellers. It first took the top slot in 1990 and subsequently ranked as number one for 12 years in a row, between 2009 and 2020.
Speculation of the model’s demise was first published by The Sun and was confirmed by Ford earlier today. In a statement, the company said: “At Ford in Europe, we are accelerating our efforts to go all-in on electrification with our passenger vehicles being fully electric by 2030 – and all vehicles across our Ford portfolio by 2035.
“As we get ready to transition to an electric future, we will discontinue production of S-Max and Galaxy in Valencia, Spain in April 2023 and discontinue Fiesta production in Cologne, Germany by end of June 2023.”
The company has already confirmed that the Ford Focus range will cease production in 2025.
