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The challenge is creating one that’s both good at being a cheap economy car, as well as being a car people actually want to own.  Whether it’s related to how expensive gas has gotten lately, or the fact that it’s just an attractive car, it would seem Ford already has a home run with the Fiesta even though it hasn’t hit dealers yet based on the press hype around the car.

The new Fiesta has been on sale in Europe for about a year now, and has been flying off lots like it had wings and was free.  Ford is using the Los Angeles motor show to debut their sub-Focus entrant for the US market, and it’s made the transition from Euro-market model to US model mostly unscathed, thankfully.

Of course, being the US market, we simply Maybe it’ll grow on me, or maybe it just never should have existed – like the horrible looking sedan version of the Nissan Versa.  Ditto the Toyota Yaris.  You’d think Ford would have learned?

Styling changes are minimal.  The sedan gets a goofy-looking three bar chrome grille up front (aping the Fusion?  woo, and indeed, hoo!) and a strip of LED lights in a chrome surround instead of real fog lights.

The Fiesta will be sold as the (awkward looking) 4 door sedan as well as the Euro-tastic 5-door hatchback, which gets a smaller body-colored grille and generally looks not so ridiculous.

Under the hood, all US-market Fiestas will be powered by a 1.6L DOHC 16v I4, which has a few tricks up it’s sleeve.  Primarily, there’s the fancy valve-timing control setup which Ford calls Ti-VCT (Twin independent Variable Cam Timing), as well as a new accessory drive belt setup that drops the tensioner for increased efficiency.  Power output is 119bhp, which is quite good for a port-injected NA 1.6L, along with 109lb-ft of torque.  More than enough for the segment, let’s say.

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