We probably remember the jokes: It aspired to be a real car. Its owner aspired to economy class. After a three-day temperature swing of 68 degrees dragged Metro Detroit out of the polar vortex into an unseasonably-warm weekend, I could stand to be outside long enough to photograph this Aspire, still aspiring all these years later.
What to say about the butt of some unsavory jokes?
In many ways, these were a joke. The styling was, to borrow a Britishism, naff. The interior could have been formed with Soviet concrete, and the thing would get to 60 about as fast as Soviet concrete, despite the very aspirational 105-MPH speedometer. This example sports exactly one luxury that I could spot-an automatic transmission. Aspiring to economy class indeed!
So by no means luxurious motoring, but this example’s still motoring despite a bit of rash and some rust starting around the rear wheels. In fact, the bag suggests it might be shuttling a young one to school.
The shadow of the Blue Oval’s “Glass House” and “Blue Lagoon,” the dealer frame from the Blue Oval’s own hometown, and the Blue Oval adorning it obfuscate its very international origins. This car’s predecessor, the Ford Festiva, was a Ford-requested, Mazda-designed, Kia-manufactured Ford. This more-appropriately-named second generation was a joint design between Kia and Ford, made again by Kia, themselves aspiring to gain a foothold in the United States.
Aspiring to be a real car indeed!
What’s left to say? People rarely aspire to austerity, despite the occasional lament amongst enthusiasts about the death of the “stripper” car. But, people do aspire to low payments, low running costs, and low maintenance. I have a couple friends that, had this car been available new today, would have bought one (one who immediately springs to mind bought the most basic Chevy Spark the dealer had, and he had to learn stick to do it). Most people, though, aspire to a decent used car if that’s what their finances dictate.
So maybe the jokes aren’t that far off the mark, in the end. But at least one Aspire is still aspiring, still reaching for that star and dreaming that dream.
worst car I ever rented, bar none
got 17 mpg on the Merritt Parkway from the airport as calculated by the refill
had to keep it essentially floored to keep up w/ traffic
burnt orange klown car
Had a couple of Festivas and loved them. Built like little tanks (though the early models always felt better built to me than the ’91-’93 models), eager to rev, tossable, surprisingly roomy, terrific fuel mileage.
Looked at buying an Aspire as my first new car and later ended up with a couple as rentals (once, ironically, when the used GTI I did buy was in the shop and I needed wheels desperately) – completely forgettable cars. The key bits were the same/similar enough to Festiva, but the execution just missed the mark completely.
Still pretty impressive to see one still on the road here in SE MI. Been a long time since I’ve seen one in the flesh. No doubt the CC-phenomena will kick in now.
You are correct about earlier Festivas being better built. I owed a 89 then traded that in for a 91 because of the fuel injection. There was a more than notable difference in handling, body structure, and NVH.
“Cars for underachievers” is the phrase I remember from one of the car rags back in the day…
There are a million stories of the bad things that happened at the FoMoCo in the late 90s. This has been one. (with apologies to the old Naked City TV show).
The 90s at Ford started with me as a huge fan and ended with me completely turned off by most of what they were making (or, in this case, selling). This could be the beginnings of a good series – managers who took something good and fouled it up.
I brought this up a few weeks ago when we saw an Aspire in a different feature, but: I do believe this is the fastest-disappearing car on American roads; both in the rearview mirror and into junkyards.
JENKINS!!!!!
(Had to say this after reading your username, sorry for the off-topic)
Not exactly a car one should aspire to . ‘Expire’ seems more in order.
Worked at a Ford dealership on the ’90’s. They called them Expires in the shop.
Could be worse. I was in high school when these were new, and people called it the Ass Pirate.
I one heard that the reason for the current Kia badge to be oval was to make it a straight swap to Ford badges on badge-engineered modela
Aspire is the name of the state run welfare employment and training program in the state of Maine. Yes this is true.
As bad, or at least indifferent as these cars are, imagine what this car could have been like if Ford/Kia had been allowed access to the Mazda parts bin and there was a 1500 or 1600cc engine under that stubby hood.
Aside from the odd proportions (it looks wide and short/stubby), what keeps me from defending these cars as a Ford fan is that Ford/Kia carried over the barely adequate mechanical bits from the Festiva. This car Aspired to be a better/faster car.
Not a car most would ASPIRE to, but it sure beats walking in Detroit temperatures.
Buyers of these only “aspired” to get the hell out of ’em once they could afford a better car. Shoulda been called the Ford Sh#tbox.
A friend and co-worker of my wife’s once made a seeming hobby out of keeping her Festivas – she had several – running and functional.
Any repairs beyond her scope were farmed out to a local mechanic who was familiar with Festivas and keeping them going.
This went on much longer than any of us would think, but when it finally became impractical, only around 2012-13, the Festiva farm was finally sent to scrap and she bought a new Jeep.
Every once in a while I’ll see a Festiva serving its driver.
But an Aspire…yeah, right.
You could call this one Kia’s Deadly Sin but I think instead it only served to inspire them to build better cars. Now, it seems, they’re adding longevity to their initial quality and value proposition.
There is a herd of Festivas on my path to and from where I sold a couple of homes in the last year. 6 or 7 of them and a 90’s Civic and it the Civic that seems to be have been non-op since I first saw in back in June.
I rented an Aspire and a Geo Metro around the mid 90’s, and Metro was better as an ‘urban car’, overall.
The fact that an Aspire made a Geo Metro look good is really all that need be said.
Oddly enough, there’s an active Festive/Aspire Club in the Raleigh, NC area. Completely unrelated, a friend of mine and his wife had one of these in white with a heap of miles on it and it really served them well. I drove it once in awhile whenever it developed some minor quirky issue and it really wasn’t too bad, automatic transmission and all. It was affectionately known by everyone as The Egg.
It’s hard for me to hate on these little buggers because of the one that took such good care of my friends for a long time.
I understand. I had a good friend in college who bought an Aspire as her first new car. She absolutely loved it! Early on it was completely destroyed in a collision with a deer. She was the first person I knew whose car airbags deployed in an accident. She actually had it repaired and drove it for years
I had an uncle who defined the meaning of “enginerd”. He was an engineer for a major defense contractor. He was obsessed with how well things worked “on paper”, vs how they actually worked in the real world. He was likewise obsessed with owning products with functionality at the bare minimum level.
Hint: his first car of my memory was an NSU Prinz. Bought used, of course.
Later in life I met a very similar enginerd who was much younger. He drove Fiestas until they were no longer viable, then switched to Aspires.
Interesting tipdbit about an “enginerd” driving an NSU Prinz: John Glenn drove one (supposedly he bought it in Canada).
But he may not have kept it after the original Mercury 7 astronauts became famous and got sweetheart lease deals from a nearby Chevy dealer. The story goes that the rest of them all leased Corvettes, with the dedicated family man Glenn deciding, instead, on a station wagon.
In any case, locating Glenn’s Prinz today would be quite a find.
It took the Chevette’s styling and made it puffy, bloated, and cheap.
Why did this car exist? Ford already had a very nice econocar in the Escort. Even if gas prices had skyrocketed, the Escort would seem to have been inexpensive and economical enough to cover the econocar needs. Must have been some production capacity/joint venture/CAFE regulations explanation. I cannot imagine anyone clamouring for a car more spartan and wretched than the Escort, which had become pretty nice after the 1991 Mazda redesign but certainly wasn’t expensive.
This car takes all the cheerful out of cheap and cheerful. Even painted in the Lisa Frank hues these things came in, it has the feel of an older lady of the night putting on a long black curly wig and thigh high boots to look younger. The Neon and Escort were legitimately cheap and cheerful, take one look at that grim grey interior and you tell me. There are econocars which say, “look out world, here I come! I may be here now, but I’m on my way up!” This is the opposite. This is a car for “I used to have a nice suburban house with a pool and a horse and then the meth hit and I’m going through greyhound station ashtrays looking for half smoked cigarettes.”
From a C/D test, this thing listed at like $10k, with no dicker room. Even the Cavalier or a Hyundai would be a better choice, and this thing was up against the Neon and Escort and Saturn, all of which went 0-60 2 seconds faster and felt like real cars.
I bet if you had to pick some sort of “I didn’t buy this with my own money, someone bought it for me (not handed it down to me) cos I was down on my luck” car, this would be number one. Even as a beater, how cheap would this have to be to spend your money on it over a $1000 LeSabre?
This doesn’t aspire to be a better car, it aspires to be chinese paper clips.
1997 Aspire, base MSRP: $9195
1997 Escort, base MSRP: $11,015
20% is a fairly big price difference.
I went to look at a brand new one in 1994 and the salesman himself told me you don’t want one. I guess that is all that needed to be said about this new model! As a side note, at the time, I did not take it as a lame upsell. And I still don’t believe it was. Just saying.
When this car debuted, with a few options like automatic and air, it would have bumped prices with the Oldsmobile Ciera. Yikes. And that’s one of the reasons Oldsmobile sold so many Cieras, even to individuals, all the way up through 1996.
Worst car I ever rented by far. It was the only thing available on the rental lot. Flat out on the uphill grade from Reno to Tahoe, we got passed by loaded semis. No lie.
I don’t have any first-hand knowledge of this car but the name, associated with the mechanical wonder that it is, always amused me. Even more amusing was the Suzuki Esteem- definitely NOT a car for those with low self esteem; or maybe it was.
I doubt the irony of the Subaru Esteem’s name was lost on the creators of Better Call Saul when they chose it as the lead character’s beater ride.
@ Evan reisner, yes but I’ll wager no escort in America ever went for MSRP after the first couple of years. They were heavily rebated also so Ford could meet cafe standards and sell profitable town cars. Add a few options to this car and it’s bumping prices with the MSRP of the escort.. there was a 20% MSRP difference but I don’t think real world difference would have been that great.
Seeing this car reminds me of the last time I saw an Aspire anywhere, much less underway under it’s own power.
It was three years ago since we were still living in Silly-nois. It must have been the late spring or early fall since I was driving my Mustang with the windows open, and without the A/C on. I came up on a beat up (primer black, body panels misaligned, hood not closed completely) black Ford Aspire hatchback rolling along in the curb lane, styled like the one in the picture. As I got up closer I saw the driver and the passenger were two high school or college age “dudes” cranking up the music with the windows down. As I rolled alongside them and looked over, the driver looked straight at me, and without missing a beat yelled over to me:
“DON’T LAUGH, I GOT IT FOR FREE!!!!” 😆
I honked the horn and gave them a thumbs up 👍🏻. Two buddies, in one guys beater car, cruising with the radio blaring, looking for a party and some girls. Kinda like me and my buddies 30+ years ago.
I almost never see Aspires on the road anymore and Metros a much more common. A friend of mine used an Aspire to learn stick on and said it was a glorified golf cart.
Here is a sporty looking Aspire I found outside of Cresent City a few weeks ago.