Ford’s Ka, launched in South Africa this month, nearly eight years after its arrival elsewhere, rather disappointed me. I’ve watched the company’s latest offerings with interest, and as they’ve improved immensely over the past few years I’ve become a big fan of the Blue Oval.
I tell everybody who will listen that if I wanted to buy a small car in which to have fun, my first choice would be the Ford Fiesta ST, because it’s a stylish and lively sports machine that’s very well balanced and enormously enjoyable to drive. The FordKa, on the other hand, feels cheaply built and offers limited space and performance as well as — for me — terrible styling.
Having got that out of the way, however, I have to admit that the FordKa has a fair bit going for it. Its styling will probably appeal to hordes of the youngsters the designers had in mind when they first put pen to paper, and it’s one of the few cars in its price range with ABS brakes and a driver’s airbag as standard. It should prove ultra-reliable as well, which is hugely important.
The 1,3-litre RoCam engine is built here in South Africa and shipped to the Ka assembly plant in Spain before returning home in complete cars. With 51 kW of power and 106 Nm of torque (at 3Â 000 rpm) the little engine’s never going to set the world alight in terms of performance, but it’s extremely reliable and a steady supply of parts is obviously never going to be a problem. The factory claims a 0-100kph time of 13,7 seconds and a top speed of 167kph, which is adequate for an urban commuter. The five-speed manual transmission is a good ‘un, offering crisp gear changes.
Handling is good, thanks to the wheel-on-each-corner formula and firm suspension. There’s not much suspension travel, though, and the first pothole we encountered at the launch made its presence very well known.
Apart from air conditioning, the driver’s airbag and ABS brakes, the Ka doesn’t offer much in the way of frills. There’s no rev counter, and the windows have to be cranked down by hand. If you want to listen to music, you’ll either have to fork out R2Â 200 extra for the factory-fitted sound system or learn to sing a lot better.
The interior of the FordKa is funky and likely to appeal to the car’s target market, but the materials used and the way the panels fitted were more in line with what I’d expect from Tata than Ford.
In the car I drove, the steering-wheel adjustment lever didn’t work, and one of the other journalists had the annoying experience of watching the trim on the windscreen pillar detach itself while he drove.
The Ka is clearly a hangover from the previous generation of Fords, and I believe that Ford South Africa should have waited for the new Ka to arrive in a couple of years’ time rather than bring this model in, near the end of its lifecycle. Had it been launched a few years ago, the car would have provided an alternative to the Toyota Tazz and Volkswagen Citi Golf, but there are too many more sophisticated offerings from other manufacturers available at reasonable prices today to make the Ka appeal to me.
The FordKa retails for R87Â 750 with a three-year/100Â 000km warranty. Service intervals are 20Â 000km.