Consumer Guide's Impressions of the 2011 Ford Ka

The Chevrolet Spark is on the way, and we think a Ford minicar is too. Though not official yet, the just-redesigned Ka may be headed to America with its own high-fashion blend of low price, high fuel economy, and city-friendly driving fun.

What We Know About the 2011 Ford Ka

Detroit may be down for the count, but the perennial Ford-Chevy fight goes on. And now that General Motors has announced its first U.S.-market minicar, the 2011 Chevrolet Spark, we think Ford will counterpunch with its comparable Ka, which has just been redesigned. It's not officially a go yet, but we understand it's being considered for a North American Blue Oval lineup that will soon be packed with other Ford Europe designs. If Ka does get the green light, it could arrive for model-year 2011 as a direct rival for the bantam Chevy, sized and priced below the 2011 Fiesta subcompact as Spark will slot below the Chevrolet Aveo.

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The original Ka appeared back in 1996 as basically a cut-down version of the contemporary Fiesta with unique 2-door hatchback styling and lower prices. Though never sold on this side of the pond, it proved a big success for Ford Europe, racking up 1.46 million sales through 2007, about a third of them in the UK. Ka's appeal stemmed mainly from its sharp handling, city-friendly size, miserly fuel thirst, and kicky, fun-to-drive nature. We confirmed all that personally some years ago with a brief "unofficial" drive in Southern California.

The redesigned Ka unveiled in 2008 was supposed to be another "Fiesta Lite," as well as a kissin' cousin to a redesigned Mazda 2 at Ford's Japanese affiliate. When production costs threatened to price the car out of its bottom-line bracket, Ford sought help from Fiat, a small-car maestro that just happened to have a suitable substitute platform. As a result, the redesigned Ka is a distant relative of the Italian company's perky retro-style 500 minicar.

What's interesting is that the Fiat connection also improves the odds for a U.S.-market 2011 Ford Ka. That's because Fiat recently bought into Chrysler LLC, aiming to use that troubled company's dealers and factories for making a U.S. comeback, led by the hot-selling 500. Although the new Ka differs in many respects from the lilliputian Latin, we suspect Ford and Fiat-Chrysler could forge some sort of joint production deal down the road. That would lower costs for each company and thus enable them to make money with vehicles that wouldn't be profitable here otherwise.

We are not making this up. Fiat already builds the redesigned Ka alongside 500s at a plant in low-wage Poland, so who's to say that setup couldn't be duplicated at an idle or underused Chrysler factory? The one roadblock might be finding adequate financing.

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