It may not look like it, but the 2011 Ford Fiesta is a big car for Ford. The Fiesta will lead the charge to America for Ford’s plan to finally bring its cool Euro cars across the pond with minimal market specific fiddling. Not a novel idea—it seems to have worked well for Volkswagen, BMW, Audi et al for a few years, but in the past the changes made to various Ford models for the US market have generally screwed up some perfectly good cars. Not so for this Fiesta, which is a good thing, as it is already Europe’s number one selling compact car and with good reason.

The new Fiesta should already be familiar to you. Ford has been marketing hard ahead of its launch for over a year now. The “Fiesta Movement” put one hundred social media luminaries in European cars early last year and they spread the word big time–blogging on their social networks and posting videos of their adventures on YouTube. If you’re an American Idol fan you’ll recognize the Fiesta’s friendly face from the show also. And a couple of meaner looking, winged and stickered versions knocked Subaru out of the top spots at last summer’s X Games Rally Car race with Kenny Brack and Tanner Foust at the wheel.

Does the 2011 Ford Fiesta live up to all the early hype? Mostly yes. Ford is entering the crowded and growing subcompact “B-car” segment with the Fiesta, going up against the Nissan Versa and Toyota Yaris at one end and the Honda Fit and Mini Cooper at the other with cars from Scion and Kia to also contend with. However, Ford has done well to transfer its decades of Euro market leadership undiluted and deliver what is probably a best in class vehicle.

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