1978 Ford Fiesta Fantasy Concept

Text that accompanied the photo:

On the surface, the 40,549 Fiestas imported by Ford Div. of Ford Motor Co. in 1977 had the ring of another captive success story. With 5,389 Ford dealers handling the car, about five times as many as any of the non-captive imports, the 100,000 car sales volume expected by the end of 1978 appeared realistic.

But by 1978, the true role of the car in the U.S. marketplace had already begun blurring. Almost on the eve of the introduction, Ford conceded there were plans to replace the car with a front-drive, domestically-produced subcompact. This decision was prompted by the government’s plan to phase-out the captives in the computing of the corporate fuel economy averages – a move that was expected to affect all such arrangements with overseas manufacturers in the future.

But the Fiesta had already enjoyed a huge success in Europe, and with a Spanish assembly operation coming on stream – one of the largest new automobile manufacturing complexes in the world – the car was expected to continue to play a prominent worldwide role for Ford. Meanwhile, in the U.S., the Fiesta gave Ford a firm slot in the growing front-drive minicar category, a niche that presumably could later be filled with a domestic product.

Source: 1978 Ward’s Automotive Yearbook

More photos and text (in german) can be found at: http://www.fiesta1.de/