Enjoying the Fiesta on the mother of all road trips

Around the world: the Fiesta World Tour 2010 starts from Los Angeles and finishes 60 days later in Sydney
Jeremy Hart10 April 2012

Seeing Ford Fiestas running around London is hardly head-turning stuff. But if you see a bright pink and a bright blue German-registered Fiesta in town on Wednesday it won't be lost tourists. It's us, midway on a round-the- world expedition to Sydney, Australia.

Spending 60 days on the road, crossing the US and Canada before skipping across the pond this week to Ireland, London and Europe, then the Middle East, Asia and — finally — Australia is still an achievement, even in the 21st century. And especially in the Fiesta, a car more at home in St John's Wood than circumnavigating the globe.
The drive, Fiesta World Tour 2010, was my idea. I'm lucky to have driven everywhere; Rolls-Royces in the Atacama, Smarts in the Arctic and 120 countries in between. But never have I done the lap of planet Earth... and with the Fiesta now on sale in the US and Asia, it's Ford's first global car since the Model T. What better way to test the staying power of this family favourite?

LA to Sydney might sound more like a Qantas flight than a circumnavigation, but that's what this 15,000-mile, 21-country extravaganza has become, and the two-month trip started two weeks ago. The western end of Route 66, Santa Monica Pier, was the start for the first sector to Las Vegas and to get things rolling, we swung by the garage of TV host and avid car enthusiast Jay Leno. It turned out that the closest he has to a Fiesta in his collection is a nitrous-oxide injected 300 hp Ford Festiva/Fiesta from 1989.

Now Jay is a home boy; driving to the state line is pretty well his limit, and we didn't expect much enthusiasm for our escapade. "Come by with your pictures when you get back, I might look at the first five," he giggled. But he did like Ford's latest Fiesta. "It is a great little car. Ford have got it right with this one," was the car-man's verdict.

And so, in a cloud of Leno's nitrous oxide, we sped north for Vegas via Death Valley. Despite not being able to touch the roof of the Fiesta, 124 degrees was not hot enough to fry an egg ... I was disappointed! We averaged two states a day across the US as we put the Fiesta through its paces, and not all of the journey is on nice interstate highways.

Just off Route 66 at Peach Springs is Hualapai native country — and the only place where you can access the Grand Canyon by road. "Not even many
Americans know you can drive to the bottom of Grand Canyon," says Nancy Echeverria, from the Hualapai Lodge.

The road plummets 2,500 feet in 20 miles. The closer we get to sea level, the hotter it gets.
This is true wild west. Cacti border the dusty track and cliffs five times higher than the Empire State Building dwarf us. We are ants in this superlative valley. The drive is certainly the way to see the Grand Canyon; no other tourists, no low flying helicopters. Just you and that huge hole in the ground.

The blast across North America took in some great places and some great people. We had Scott Wade, from Dirty Car Art, draw a Texas longhorn in dust on our rear window and we made a pilgrimage to Indianapolis, home of the Indy 500 and former US GP. The day we were in Indianapolis the Moto GP boys were in town. The place was jammed — from the petrolhead hangout of the Union Jack pub, to the poshest hotels.

We are now, as I write, in icewine country in Niagara-on-the-Lake in Ontario, Canada, on route to Montreal. It's exciting to have made the first of 21 border crossings, from Detroit to Canada. Hardly Syria into Jordan but exciting enough. Now we're looking forward to getting back to familiar ground — London.

And the Fiesta (in fact we have two of them), the star of this trip? For a car aimed at the urban market it works well over long distances. We only have two people per car and so there's lots of space.

The US cars come in 1.6-litre format only but that's just fine for long distance cruising and we're averaging about 35 mpg. One of the cars is an auto, the other a manual. I prefer the manual by far. Twice we have taken it off-road and both times it soaked up the rough stuff well, so it bodes well for the potentially harder roads of the Middle East and South-East Asia which lay ahead. The auto? That'll be perfect in London.

By the time you read this we will have reached the end of leg one in New York City. Rap DJ and car nut Funkmaster Flex has invited us to his garage where he has been pimping his Fiesta Bronx style. Phat... as they say in the Big Apple.

Review: Nothing little about C3 Picasso

Citroën C3 Picasso
Exclusive 110 HDI
Top speed: 114 mph 0-62 mph: 11.2 second; Emissions: 130g/km;
Price: £16,795 (ranges from £12,695); Combined fuel consumption: 57.6

Citroën has enjoyed headlines in the motoring press this week with the unveiling of its punchy DS3 Racing model, followed by first details and images of the second in its new DS line — the larger, impressive-looking DS4.

It's interesting to see this firm branching out in new directions but I still like its "bread and butter" offerings. I've just clocked up a couple of hundred miles over the final summer holiday weekend, putting the family credentials
of the C3 Picasso — the firm's unusually styled mini MPV — to the test.

It's not fast nor is it particuarly large but it impresses with its extremely clever "packaging", squeezing far more people space into its "supermini" frame than seems possible.

So what impressed most in the 1.6-litre diesel model on our trip to France? After removing the false bottom of the load area, it's surprising how much luggage this deceptively spacious car can carry. Rear-seat passengers get more legroom than in many cars several classes above.

We were impressed with how well this diesel unit pulls, too. Such is the low-down "grunt" from the engine that it barely needs to be revved, making for brisk but relaxed progress. The C3 Picasso is most in its element on winding A and B roads where it is fun to drive, the soft, compliant ride adding to the laid-back experience. It cruises OK on motorways too, but it's slightly noisy at 70-80 mph.In London, the compact dimensions of the Picasso are a boon as is the large tailgate which makes a terrific rain shelter when loading and unloading.
Mike Stone

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