Fiesta Force

Ford isn’t planning an ST or RS Fiesta, but this is the next best thing – the Ford Fiesta S2000 rally car. Built by M-Sport – the same team behind the WRC Focus – it’s Ford first global rally car.

The Fiesta is eligible to enter national rally championships, as well as the IRC and S2000 World Cup in 2010, and will also form the basis of Ford’s WRC effort in 2011. It will debut as a course car at next week’s Rally of Scotland, the final round of this year’s IRC.
The new Fiesta S2000-spec rally car will make its public debut this weekend when it appears as course car on the final round of the Intercontinental Rally Challenge (IRC) in Scotland.

Ford finally took the wraps off the new rally challenger at its M-Sport HQ in Cumbria yesterday.

“This is the first global rally car for Ford and M-Sport,” says M-Sport Managing Director Malcolm Wilson. “I really believe that we have produced a fantastic rally car and this launch is a big step to seeing it out competing in rallies. It’s the first time in five years that we have been able to offer a Ford rally car that can challenge for overall victory in national championships across the world.”

The new car will make its competitive debut in 2010 and is eligible for S2000 and IRC regulations, but is likely to form the basis for Ford’s next full-house WRC car when new rules come into effect in 2011 or 2012.

The 280bhp, 192lb ft four-wheel drive Fiesta S2000 has gone from the drawing board to the rally stage in just nine months.

“It’s a fantastic feeling to see the car actually launched to the world after all the hard work and testing behind closed doors,” says M-Sport Technical Director Christian Loriaux. “Everyone at M-Sport has had to pull together in order to get the Fiesta S2000 finished in such a short period of time and it has been a great team effort to get to this point so quickly.

One year after its debut, more than half a million customers have purchased the new Ford Fiesta, marking an important milestone as Ford Motor Company prepares to bring the fuel-efficient, global car to the U.S. and other key Asian Pacific markets next year.

The new Fiesta, the first in a wave of stylish vehicles being brought to world-wide markets under the ONE Ford plan, went on sale in Germany in October 2008. It quickly became the second-best-selling car for all markets in Europe and the leader in the European small car segment. The new Fiesta has also been a key driver behind Ford of Europe’s market share gains, which are up 0.5 percentage points this year through September to 9.2 percent, the highest since 1999.

After its European introduction, the Fiesta was launched in South Africa, Australia, New Zealand and China. Global retail sales of the car reached 470,000 units through September of this year, with 430,000 sales in Europe and 40,000 in the Asia Pacific region. Continued strong demand for Fiesta through October has pushed the total number beyond 500,000.

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