1989 Ford Festiva L from North America - Comments

I bought the car for $100 from a local dealer and it smoked a little bit on the test drive, but I didn't realize that it had a vicious oil leak until after the papers were signed. I have to put a new valve cover gasket on it and I just had to rebuild the alternator.

Comfortable riding. Great gas mileage. Lots of space if you put the back seat up. Good car to put a nice stereo system in.

A Ford Festiva Fun to Drive???

Well...Maybe after a Heavy Soggy Buick, it probably it is a Kinda "Fun" car to drive.

But the thing is: You Americans, says, that every Little Car is Fun. I Bet if Rover Released the Awful and Boring Rover CityRover, you guys would probably called it as "Fun" when actually, the Rover is very Dull.

Not all Americans think every little car is fun...if we did, there would be a lot more of them on the roads than there are.

While "fun to drive" is certainly a subjective issue, I can say that the '89 Festiva LX that I owned was definitely not fun to drive--unless you LIKE having to stay in the right lane ALL the time and even then have @#$%

zoom past you and cut back in front of you. It was slow, noisy, and cheaply built. I would not like to think about getting in a serious accident with anything bigger than it (just about everything else out there). About the only good things were that it was inexpensive to buy used, got good gas mileage and was easy to park. It would make a great city car: park it anywhere and you could probably even leave the keys in it!

A Festy with the 5 speed and a properly running engine is quite peppy. they only weigh something like 1800 LBS, so the 65 horsepower 1.3 is enough to hustle around in traffic quite nicely. These won't beat a Honda, or anything else really, but they're great for someone who wants a reliable, fuel efficent runabout.

As a basic car, the Festiva is very slow, but it's possible to swap a different engine into it for some serious performance boosts... This year, a Festiva with a B6T engine swapped into it (Yes, a Festiva with a turbo) beat a Subaru WRX at the NOPI Nationals. Festiva ran a 14.05, WRX ran 14.15, a tenth of a second slower then the little Festiva. As for the transmission, apparently he's still using the stock Festiva transmission.

With cars like the Festiva getting older, they're becoming a good platform to start off with, and build up into something more than the manufacturer intended them to be. A car is only as slow/fast as you want it to be, if you're willing to put some effort into it. I'm going to be picking up a nice blue one for $500 as something to train myself on sticks with, and maybe even as something to build up.

I encourage all to get a fisteva for it is truly a great little car to own. I have a 1989 and it has lasted me 8 years with very little problems I have seen people with brand new 2000 yr. cars broke down and their wallets empty after repairs, well not me, it is a little slow on the freeway and if you like fast new cars then fine (I do as well) but I feel you should have this one as a spare. It really is a great car mostly for economic reasons. I truly love mine, it's a good car, parts are reasonable as well. the only issue I had was some valve guides and the fan, after that was fixed it has been in mint condition! Get one if you can!!