Motown's experiments with pocket-sized wheels have run the gamut from outsourced deathtraps to laughably expensive imports, and few have really fit our needs. The Ford Fiesta, designed with both European and American customers in mind, marks the end of that trend. Most Continental runabouts are too small and nervous to mesh with our wide-open spaces and supersized asses, but the twenty-six-hundred-pound Fiesta somehow offers the poise and quiet comfort of a car twice its size. It's also cheap ($13,320 for the sedan; $15,120 for the hatch), easy on fuel, and a barrel of giggles in corners. Detroit, you now have the recipe. Keep it up.
The Specs: 120-hp 1.6-liter I-4, 30/38 mpg, $13,320
Source: Esquire