Throughout its long and illustrious history, the Ford Fiesta was always a great little car, and immensely popular as a result, but the sixth generation of Ford’s best-selling supermini was even more of a game-changer than other Fiestas thanks to its unbelievably well polished driving manners. It also had significant improvements in other areas, including practicality, interior quality, safety and technology. The 2013 model was significant, too, because having initially gone on sale in 2008, 2013 was the year it got a comprehensive facelift, making it even better and more appealing. There were visual upgrades inside and out, improved equipment levels and new engines.

Strengths:

Absolutely fantastic to drive
Lots of them on the used car market
Affordable, with low running costs

Weaknesses:

Interior quality isn’t as flash as some
Practicality is adequate rather than amazing
Rather average reliability

Is the 2013 Ford Fiesta better than the 2013 Vauxhall Corsa?

Compared with the superminis of the time, the Corsa is a thoroughly competitive and recommendable contender, with solid performances in pretty much every area. The Mk6 Ford Fiesta, on the other hand, is on another level entirely. Yes, it does a solid job in most of those same areas, but in the area of dynamic polish, the Fiesta is streets ahead of each and every one of its rivals. In fact, we reckon that, pound-for-pound, this iteration of the Ford Fiesta is one of the most brilliantly engineered cars of all time: yes, it really is that good.