Fiesta becomes UK's all-time best seller

THE FORD FIESTA has become Britain's all-time top selling car.

Ford said Fiesta sales had now topped 4,115,000, taking the model past the previous record holder, the Ford Escort .

First launched in 1976, and initially made at Dagenham in Essex, the Fiesta has led the small-car sector in the UK for 27 of the 37 years and has been Britain's annual best-selling car since 2009 when it overtook the Ford Focus.

A total of 4,105,961 Escorts were bought in the 32 years it was on sale in the UK from 1968 to 2000.

Ford Britain chairman and managing director Mark Ovenden said: "The Fiesta has gone from strength to strength and today's car combines style, value, driving dynamics and remarkable technologies."

Ford said today that it would now take more than 80 modern-day Fiestas to generate the nitrogen oxide emissions of a single 1976 Mk1 model.

The last Fiesta to be built at Dagenham was in 2002, with the model being Ford's final car produced at the Essex plant, with car assembly ending that year.

By Peter Woodman, Press Association