The cars they had where in two trims, one the smaller engine with 90hp or so and the more higher spec version with 120hp. The one they had for test drive was the 120hp version, mated with a 5sp manual. It was fully loaded minus for Navigation and was in Euro spec as the Ford people kept reminding me that US version is still in development. Well I hope they dont mess with how it drives.

First impression the car is well built, and the interior looked very sharp, almost VW like (as a VW owner myself). The seats looked meh, but they fit the American butt very well (which is mine
The way the car drives is very smooth, steering very direct and not anything like the crap I have seen on my dads 01 Mustang which makes you think they use sponges. I did not push it very hard, but it handled nice and the pickup for 120hp felt really good. Brakes where a tad bit over sensitive, maybe I had just adjusted to it, but I had way too many head jerking stops. It has front disk and rear drums, which I thought was a bit cheeping out but I guess they will save that for the ST versions. It was more then enough power to drive around city, and on the twisty but could leave you lacking for revs in highway passing.
But the real kicker is the price, they claim in the spec I drove it will be around $15k… That is very good! The car I drive everyday is my 2007 VW GTI and in the short time I spent this car, driving around the city, it felt like a $15k GTI. I am more the confident if the two went head to head the GTI would smoke it, even the ST version, but for the price and what market it targets it does a damn good job.

Overall, I would say this is not a Ford I would expect and if they can do this with the US Focus and a hot version of this Fiesta I think VW will have a hard time on its hand as the real king in the Hot Hatch market in the US and worldwide.

“[Osama] Bin Laden, before he got smart, he had the only white SUV that had a sun roof in Afghanistan … but he figured that out pretty fast,” Schulte said.

Does not give away too much but I going to guess it was a Toyota Land Cruiser.  You might ask why, well when I visited the area in 2003 the hot new thing in the area for the rich was Land Cruisers, so much so that many held it in higher regard then a Merc or BMW.  This is not too odd as Toyota trucks have been popular with terrorist/3rd world nations for a long time as they are nearly indestructible as proved by Top Gear.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Click here to view the embedded video.

makes you wonder if we should just not track every Toyota imported to the region