The Ford Festiva Is an Icon of Performance and Perseverance

I vividly remember one of the first moments in my journey to becoming the mildly condescending yet somewhat entertaining automotive journalist you see today. It started with an answer that shut down a question about the need for car dealerships in the U.S.A., and it went a little something like this:

“Dealers exist because you only want to buy one Explorer Eddie Bauer for your family, but if gas prices are low, Ford might just demand you buy two Festiva compliance cars before you get it. Play that game and you too can buy directly from the manufacturer.”

That nugget of wisdom wasn’t an insult to this South Korean import of Japanese origin, as the Ford Festiva’s multifaceted legacy has cemented its stateside raison d’etre. My answer came from witnessing how 1993 Festivas cured like a foundation as they sat at one Houston-area Ford dealership. The store was named after a man who met a tragic fate with dangerous repercussions for his famiy, but it was showing signs of stress years before that tragedy unfolded: months passed with Festivas stacked up like firewood by the Southwest Freeway, with only two of the desirable Ford Explorers in inventory, staring them down and sizing them up.

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But both the Explorers at this dealership were two-door Sport models with zero options and manual transmissions, so they spent plenty of time conversing with their Korean brethren. (Shoppers fled to other Ford dealers with proper allocations of the coveted SUV.) And the stories those Festivas musta told those glorified Rangers desirable SUVs about the merits of globalism, durability, practicality, and longevity had to be priceless.

While the Explorer was a smashing success in North America, the less-loved Festiva put the world on wheels like a modern-day Model T, with names like the Mazda 121, Kia Pride, and Saipa 111. The question isn’t where the Festiva was sold, rather where didn’t it have an impact. To this day, the 1986 Mazda/Kia/Ford Festiva is sold in Tunisia as the Wallys 619, and they highlight the Festiva connection in their marketing material as a source of pride in its durability and affordability.

What the folks at Wallys (rightly) glossed over is how such a global platform can be foundation for a whole lotta fun. And those Festivas I saw for months at the Ford store couldn’t possibily imagine a future where they turned heads like their Fox Body Mustang relatives.

But that’s precisely what happened, as the 1,700 lb Festiva went from an impressive fuel sipper with a small group of loyal fans, to an affordable pocket rocket with suspension and steering subsystems sporting Mazda-worthy dynamics.

We all know about the mid-engine Festiva Shogun from the likes of Jay Leno, but the grassroots motorsport enthusiast leveraged powertrains from Mazda to do the Festiva a solid, creating a micro-sized monster out of the modest Ford.

Making it happen is easy, as the most common conversion is the Mazda BP swap. This 16-valve, 1.8-liter engine shares its blueprint with the Festiva’s 1.3-liter, eight-valve, B3-series engine. Horsepower jumps from 58 to 127, with a strong powerband and a 7,000 rpm redline. The BP’s internals are also friendly to turbocharging, which has its upsides in straight-line performance.

In my years as a judge at The 24 Hours of Lemons, I’ve seen modified Festivas go from competitive challengers to outright class winners in this somewhat-famous endurance series. I was even given one of these vehicles as a weekend cruiser when I judged a Lemons race. It was BP-swapped and had a power-to-weight ratio I never experienced, making it a bit of a personal revelation.

My limited time with a BP-swapped Festiva also included a mild lift kit using off the shelf bits, and off-road tires. Be it on or off road, that little ‘stiva was treat: clearly, the DNA in this platform is a dynamic delight, likely for the same reasons its Mazda Miata relative is one of the best sports cars ever made.

So it’s no surprise that the folks at Motorweek came away from their experience with the new Ford Festiva in posh (posh?) LX trim with good overall vibes. The chassis dynamics were hampered by the puny 12-inch wheels, even with the extra 20 mm tire width (now at 165 mm), an extra half an inch of wheel width (up to a robust 4.5 inches), and shorter 70-series sidewall on the LX trim level. But the rest of the platform impressed relative to its asking price, from the bold fender flares to its precise transmission.

But what really impressed me was how Motorweek’s John Davis set the Festiva up for success by recognizing its ability to be a finely designed Japanese car, made cheaply in South Korea, and sold/serviced/warrantied by one of the largest dealer networks in the North America. This was not possible with the Festiva’s competition, especially if you lived outside of a major metropolitan area. The 1980s were a time when Toyota had yet to dominate all corners of America, Honda was a bit corrupt in its retailing, and even GM was muddying the waters with an Isuzu-based Chevrolet Spectrum and a Suzuki-based Geo Metro.

So the Festiva with its muscular little fenders and a heart of engineering gold occupies a unique spot in automotive history. It’s no “small wonder” (sorry) that the platform survived in markets around the world well after the American Festiva disappeared in 1993. Perhaps the Tunisian derivative that’s still for sale today is also a hoot to drive at full tilt, as it’s always more fun to drive a slow car fast than a fast car slow. It has gotta be a giddly little thrill, because the legacy of ‘stiva life cannot be wrong.