The End of an Era

 

After 25 years in the Festiva game I’ve decided to retire. Over the course of our Festiva ownership we’ve met lots of great people, hosted ten Westiva car meets, attended Festiva Madness in North Carolina twice, been in 36 of the lower 48 states and four provinces and driven close to half a million kilometers! A lot of those adventures, and misadventures, have been documented in this blog!

 

The Festivas meet face to face!

As I mentioned in the post introducing 'Project Fastiva 2', my original plan with the two cars was to take all the “good” stuff off the rapidly bio-degrading blue car and transfer it all to the rust free white car. However, I was finding it a challenge to juggle the garage space and decide whether to work on the Festivas or the Bugeye. The Bugeye won out. 

 

Boxes of parts and winter tires...

Two gearboxes, tools and interior bits

Even more bits & pieces. Lots of manuals and brochures in the blue bag.

Waiting for their new owner.

 I was fortunate that a local Festiva enthusiast was very interested and purchased both cars and all the bits, and pieces. It turns out that he had bought a Festiva from me about 18 years ago!! He has told me that rust repairs are already under way on the blue car. 

 ...and so a new era begins!

INTRODUCING PROJECT FASTIVA 2!

After many years of adventuring, and a little bit of misadventuring, I'm back to a similar spot with the current Ford Festiva that I was at about ten years ago with the previous one... it's bio-degrading rather rapidly.

 

So the search was on for as rust free a Festiva as could be found within a reasonable distance and at a reasonable price. That part of the new project has been completed!

I am now the proud owner of an essentially rust free 1992 white Festiva with less that 120,000km (74,500 miles) showing on the odometer. It's had been parked on a concrete driveway for the past six or eight years and, fortunately, there is no evidence of any kind of animal inhabitants.

 

Following this link will take you to the build story for the current car, FASTIVA 1, and the general plan is to repeat that process for this latest acquisition. I will be updating and revising some of the systems as I go along. Depending on budget and timing some of those may, or may not, include:

• engine will be refreshed
• an air-to-air intercooler will be added to complement the water/methanol injection
• the A/C will be made to work properly
• coilovers replaced or sent off to Tein to be refurbished

The goal is to have the car on the road by the fall of 2026.

One of the major decisions will be regarding paint. Do I keep it white, paint it the same as the current car or a completely different color? Thanks to the photo editing skills of one of my daughters, here's an idea of what the finished product might look like in the original white! I am very pleasantly surprised how good this looks!

If I decide to stay with the white this will bring me full circle... I purchased my first Ford Festiva back in 2000 and it was a white 1992!

I'm currently working on the logistics of this project and will keep you updated as things progress. I would love to hear what you think, or if you have any suggestions, so be sure to leave a comment below. 

Bugeye Sprite update

It's been over a year since I last posted on the Bugeye and a lot has transpired in that time so I thought an update would be in order. 

Since the last post in February of '23 the car's interior was finished, the lights and trim installed on the exterior and the engine, gearbox and rear end were all filled with the appropriate fluids. With petrol in the tank and some adjustments to the carburetors and distributor the engine roared to life and the Bugeye moved under its own power for the first time in almost forty years! All of this was chronicled on the Econobox Garage YouTube channel which you can reach by clicking on this link.

July '23 was a busy month with final preparations to get the car on the road legally. Insurance was procured, it passed its preregistration inspection with flying colors, license plate installed and then it was off to its public debut at the European Classic Car Meet hosted by the Vintage Sports Car Club of Calgary at Stanley Park in southwest Calgary.

Attracting a crowd at the 2024 ECCM

In good company

Looking towards the show grounds 2023 ECCM

I took the car to several shows over the remaining summer and fall where it was very well received.  I made a little model of the car and my daughter made a little frog to ride in it. I have this as a mascot that sits on the rear deck of the car... the younger generation seems to really like that as well as the car itself. One of the pleasures of showing the car is seeing the smiles on the faces of little kids when they get to sit behind the steering wheel.

"Froggy" the mascot in his car!

I was able to put on over 800 miles (1300km) before winter set in and the car tucked away in the garage.

Fast forward to March '24 and the organizers of the Calgary International Auto & Truck Show asked the VSCCC if some members were willing to display their cars in the "classics" section of that show. I jumped at the opportunity and was one of five cars from the club to accept the invitation. The other four were a couple of E-Type Jags, a D-Type replica and a Pantera.

 

On display at the 2024 Calgary International Auto & Truck Show

A frog among the cats!

I had the car towed to the show as it was very cold and very snowy. However, when the show was over the weather had warmed up considerably and the roads had dried up accordingly so I decided to drive home! I left the roof off, made sure I had the heater turned on and drove out of the BMO Center into a brisk, +5ºC, but sunny day! 

This car always draws waves, smiles and thumbs ups and this twenty minute drive home was no exception with the first one coming before I even left the parking lot!

Just a bit of snow on the ground!

Once I got home I had some errands to run so I thought I may as well use the Bugeye as it was out and warmed up! I'm looking forward to many more miles, smiles and car shows in the coming months.

Thanks for checking in! I'd love to hear from you so please leave a note in the comments section below!

 

A long overdue update on our Bugeye Sprite

It's been a while since I last posted so I thought I would bring you up to date with our Bugeye Sprite project!

The car is now painted and has been wet sanded with 1000 and 2000 grit sandpaper. Next up is polishing and after that installing things like badges, lights, doors etc. The engine, gearbox, rear end and all the suspension are in place. If all goes well it will be on the road this spring!

 

Before paint

 

After paint

There were a couple of mishaps along the way, though. While upgrading the lighting in the garage I dropped an electrical box on the front of the car resulting in a fairly deep chip in the new paint. That took a while to fix but we are now back on track.

Engine bay before

Engine bay after

You can see the progress and processes on the Econobox Garage YouTube channel by following this link. 

Thanks for checking in! I'd love to hear from you so please leave a comment below.

More on the Renault Clio Williams

I recently did a series on European hatches that we didn't get in North America. In the third post in that series I featured the Renault Clio Williams. 

One of my favorite YouTube channels, Tyrrell's Classic Workshop , just did a video on that same car that I thought you might enjoy...

Ramblings of a car guy.

I've always liked cars.

My dad's 1959 Riley One-Point-Five. My first car photo circa 1966 near Reading, UK.

I can remember almost all of the cars my parents had. I remember as a ten year old watching cars drive by the house and trying to name them all. I remember the first time I drove a car; it was a '64 Dodge station wagon with a push button automatic! 

Dad's '64 Dodge wagon circa 1971. Calgary, AB.

 I remember the car I took my driving lessons in and some of the routes taken. I remember the subscriptions to several car magazines that I would read almost the moment they were retrieved from the mailbox. I remember my first car and all the following purchases, most of them anyway, and fortunately the good ones outnumbered the bad ones. I remember buying my first socket set so I could fix the broken rear end in my first car. I remember the first car I bought brand new, where I bought it and how much I paid for it.

My 1959 Beetle. Calgary AB, circa 1974.

59 Beetle interior shot

 

Hagerty's Jason Cammisa "reviews" the Renault R5 Turbo

 

Renault 5 Turbo (photo from Mecum Auctions)

I know I've posted about the Renault 5 turbo a couple of times already (previous post here) but Hagerty just posted this fun video and I had to share....

Enjoy! Oh, and please let me know of any other hot hatches you'd like to see

What are we up to now?

When the econoboxes of the late eighties and early nineties came on the scene the aim was to provide an inexpensive and economical alternative to the gas guzzlers of the day. This was not a new phenomenon in the auto industry! In the mid fifties British sports cars were expensive and didn't get very good gas mileage.

In 1956 Donald Healey, of Austin Healey fame, was tasked by Leonard Lord, chairman of the British Motor Corporation, to come up with a small low-cost sports car. This resulted in the development of the Austin Healey Sprite, a small lightweight two seat roadster that Healey described as "something a chap could keep in his cycle shed"!

1960 Austin Healey Sprite. Photo taken Aug '18 in Calgary.

Why am I bringing this up on the Econobox Cafe blog you may ask?

European hatchbacks: fourth in a series.

Welcome to the fourth and final (for now) post in our series on a number of econoboxes, and their "hot hatch" variants, that were not available in the North American market. In this post we'll journey to Italy and Japan!

First to Italy to have a look at the Fiat Tipo. This subcompact first went on sale in the European market in June of 1988 and in the UK the following month.It was only available as

Putt Putt: Memories of a first car

I've been involved in the Festiva community for almost twenty years and over that time I've met a lot of other owners, both locally and internationally. I've also had the opportunity to help some owners keep their cars on the road. I recently parted out a Festiva as it was beyond saving with rust having taken its toll. I asked its owner, Sara, to share the story of that car and here it is...

May I introduce Putt Putt!

My younger sister (Jana) purchased the car in July 2013,shortly after she turned 16, from a guy in Calgary named James; she named it “Putt Putt” because of the sounds it made. It was just shy of 118,000 km and from what I heard, it was very lightly used and had just been sitting in a garage mostly

One time when she was driving our cousin home from school, smoke started coming out of the radio and they had to pull over and get picked up. Luckily it turned into nothing worse!

European hatchbacks: third in a series.

Welcome back to France! After a quick trip across the channel in the previous Euro hatchback post we've returned to take a look at the Renault Clio and Citroen AX econoboxes and their hot hatch variants that were not available in the North American market.
 

European econoboxes and hot hatches.

The Renault Clio was introduced in 1990 to replace the successful but aging Renault 5.

A Festiva by any other name

May of us have nicknames for our cars and Festiva owners are no exception. Sometimes our cars are named by others, some names stick and others don't.

Here's a few of those names, and stories behind them, from friends in the Festiva community!

Ben in Kentucky:

It was my brother who named Frito. Shortly after acquiring the vehicle he was cleaning it out for me and found an empty bag of the Frito’s snacks in the interior. His brain connected that to the film “Idiocracy” in which one of the main characters names is Frito, and also features a white Festiva GL in a rather hilarious monster truck segment. I liked the name, particularly for its unique brevity, and for its similarity to the another white Festiva in the community called “Pedro”.

Frito: a very well travelled Festiva!

European hatchbacks: second in a series.

Welcome to the second of four posts featuring a number of econoboxes, and their "hot hatch" variants, that were not available in the North American market. These will be models available from the late 80s until the mid to late 90s manufactured in France, the UK, Italy and Japan!

European econoboxes and hot hatches.

In this week's post I'll introduce you to cars from both sides of the English Channel.

A case of mistaken identity... it's NOT a Fiesta!

One of the bane's of Festiva ownership is that people aren't sure what kind of car they're looking at and are prone to call it something other than what it is. The most common alias is Fiesta, and it has happened to me so often I've given up correcting them!

Not a fiesta!

So for more of a lighthearted post I thought I would share a few mistaken identity stories from the Festiva.

European hatchbacks: first in a series.

The selection of econoboxes in North America in the late 80's and early 90's wasn't a wide one.There were a few domestic models but most were captive imports such as the Ford Festiva and Dodge Colt or models directly from Honda, Toyota and the like. Cities and towns are generally spread over long distances in North America so cars, and trucks for that matter, tended towards the large size for comfort and because we had the room! Such is not the case in Europe. Towns and cities are much closer together, countries smaller and the continent is more densely populated. If you took a twelve hour drive in Canada or the US you wouldn't leave Canada or the US. A twelve hour drive in Europe, for example from Amsterdam to Milan could have you  in a total of six countries; Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg, Germany, Switzerland and Italy! That's part of the reason that the majority of cars in Europe tend to be smaller. Combine that with the high cost of fuel and the result was, and still is, a much larger selection of cars that would fit into the econobox category. 

European econobox and hot hatch

This is the first of four posts coming over the next couple of months that will feature a number of those econoboxes, and their "hot hatch" variants, not available in the North American market. These will be models available from the late 80s until the mid to late 90s manufactured in France, the UK, Italy and Japan!

Gas prices in April 2020: a good news/bad news story.

The price for regular gas in Calgary is currently hovering around 60¢ per liter. It hasn't been that low since December of 2003!!!! The gas prices have been floating between $1.10 and 90¢ since June of 2019 so the drop is quite significant. That brings me to a couple good news/bad news scenarios.

It's April 12, 2020 and gas can be had for 58.9¢ per litre!!

Good news: gas is cheap. The bad news: there's nowhere to go! We are currently in a situation where provincial and national parks are closed, and we are required to stay home. One comment I've seen a couple of times asks the question "Is it just me or is anyone else getting three weeks to the gallon?"

The Festiva gets hosed!

Last week I listed a number of updates/repairs coming up for the Festiva. In the last few days I cleared one of those tasks off the list!

Engine bay before mods...

When the car was first built I had to cobble together a custom lower radiator hose to join the modified water outlet on the engine to the stock radiator.

What's next for the Festiva?

There's a number of things we'd like to get done on the Festiva before the first car show we plan to attend in July.  Relatively minor projects include installing a water temperature gauge, rebuilding the lower radiator hose, replacing the rear transmission mount and installing new strut mounts. 

Heading to the mountains for some cross-country skiing

What's in your automotive library?

In the years before there was YouTube and the internet the main source of information on how to fix cars came in a book or manual. News of things happening in the automotive world usually came in a magazine of some sort. In the 80's and early 90's I had subscriptions to Road & Track along with Car and Driver. I picked up the occasional Motor Trend along the way and it was in their August 1988 edition that I first read of the Festiva and its potential.

A portion of our automotive library.

That got me thinking... what books or magazines do I have in my automotive library?

A forgotten econobox

When was the last time you saw a Yugo? Well, friends of mine recently posted a couple of photos of one in Pennsylvania.....

Yugo in the wild. Pennsylvania 2020. Photo credit Isaac Rodriguez

Yugo in the wild 2020 Pennsylvania. Photo credit Isaac Rodriguez.

Just what is a Yugo and why don't we remember them? The Yugo GV was manufactured in Serbian city of Kragujevac and introduced to North America by Malcolm Bricklin. The year was 1985 and Bricklin was having a rough go with the Pininfarina Spiders and Bertone X1/9s he was importing and needed a product to bolster his business.