US-market Fiesta likely to steal sales from Hyundai


New US-market Ford Fiesta looks great. But is this enough to steal sales from Hyundai?

Apparently, the all-new, US-market, Ford Fiesta sedan has made it unofficial US debut just moments ago, with the very first and exclusive images surfacing to the web. Scheduled to make its official US debut at the up-coming L.A. Auto Show next week, the all-new Fiesta sedan features a bit different front fascia design than its European five-door sibling model.

The most evident difference between the two is the front bumper design, which features massive air intake and large chrome intakes for the fog-lights. The US-market Fiesta also sports a redesigned front grille with nicely incorporated grille-bars. There are no pics of the rear-end at the moment, so its quite difficult to talk about the rear design, but we expect to see some traditional design DNA elements from latest Ford cars at the rear-end of Fiesta.

The all-new Fiesta will compete head to head against Hyundai's sub-compact Accent. The ageing Hyundai Accent, with not so appealing design will probably have some hard times competing against a brand-new Ford model with striking design and more modern powertrain technology, so question is how will the new Fiesta affect Hyundai Accent's 2010 sales? If priced reasonably, the Accent could loose several thousand units of sales next year.


Thankfully, Hyundai has an all-new Accent in the works, which should hit the market in late 2010 or early 2011. The very first spy shots reveal its going to look as hot as Fiesta four-door so you can expect the battle for the sub-compact car customers to intensify once Hyundai launches its new product in the US market.

Hyundai and Ford are currently in the "battle" for the fourth largest automaker in the world. According to figures released by the Automotive News, Hyundai's 2.153.000 units sold are 8.000 more than the US auto giant. Great Fiesta sales could catapult Ford past Hyundai to recap the fourth spot again, but be sure the roaring Korean auto maker will fight back and make FoMoCo hard time to sleep.

Update: We added some more pics including the one revealing the rear-end design, which is not as appealing as the striking front-end. But all-in-all, the forth-coming Fiesta is a great looking car (perhaps the best looking one in its segment) and should do really well for Ford Motor Company in the US market. Enjoy the images.