Americans, Eat Your Heart Out: China Gets New Fiesta Now

In the olden days, the headquarter markets got all the new toys first. Joint ventures and subsidiaries abroad had to wait a whole generation, until tooling, machinery, sometimes whole assembly lines were crated up and shipped abroad. Especially in China, this had attracted criticism, as in “we don’t want your hand-me downs.” With computer aided manufacturing and robots, the introduction of new models to other markets was sped up significantly. Now, China can’t complain anymore. This week. Ford China started manufacturing the seventh Generation Fiesta subcompact at their Nanjing plant, only months after the first cars had hit the market in Germany last October. Nanjing is the second plant in the world to build the car. In China, the Fiesta will go on sale late in the first quarter. The Fiesta was shown at the North American International Auto Show in 2007 under the name, “The Verve,” but Americans will have to wait until 2010 before they can buy it domestically. In Europe, they can’t make enough of the little guy.

Ford has sold more than 61,000 Fiestas in its 19 European markets during its two months in showrooms. It is the auto maker’s second-best selling vehicle behind the Ford Focus.

Ford has been touting the Fiesta as its first “global car” since a version of the vehicle – with very little changes – will be available in almost every car market where Ford has a presence, the Nikkei (sub) writes.

China can even be proud of a Fiesta first: The Nanjing plant will be the first facility to build the four-door sedan version of the Fiesta. Fiesta production will begin later this month at Ford’s plant in Valencia, Spain. In 2010, Ford and Mazda’s joint-venture facility, Auto Alliance Thailand, in Rayong will begin producing the Fiesta for other major Asian markets. At that time, Ford’s plant in Cuautitlan, Mexico, will build the Fiesta for the U.S. and other North American markets.