The Ford’s A bit soulless, the Hyundai’s got character. There, I’ve said it. Something I’d never in my most fevered dreams expected to say in a Europe versus Korea comparison, and certainly not the latter half about a car from a company that has a history of fun cars. Ford’s latest car, aimed at an upwardly-mobile middle class, is a grown-up’s car, not a boy’s toy, a refined, controlled and thoughtful machine that does pretty much everything well but doesn’t make you fall in love with it. It does all you’d expect of it though, which is a good thing in this class.
A seven-lakh oil-burning mid-sizer can’t be a one-trick pony. It has to do everything its family asks it to do, because it’s unlikely they’ll have a second vehicle: it has to work both in the city and the highway, and never drink much. Plus, it has to prop your nose up in uppercrusty circles, because that’s where you’re aiming to be; here, Ford’s done an excellent job with the sort of things the average buyer looks for. It uses a 1.4-litre, 68bhp common-rail turbodiesel, in keeping with current fashion, and it’s a superbly refined motor, with a seamless spread of power, good top-end pace and long legs, which makes it very relaxed on long-distance trips.
It rides extremely well, whether in the city or on the Expressway, and though thumps are quite audible you don’t feel the shock of every pothole. High-speed stability is good rather than great, but that engine has a lovely momentum: get it up into its comfort zone and you float past traffic, the engine’s murmur drowned out by the surprisingly high road noise.
Here, the Accent’s not great. Its 82bhp 1.5-litre three-pot common-rail engine (the Elantra’s engine with one cylinder amputated) is a noisy brat, very clattery at idle and a fretful cruiser, not happy to stay at a steady speed. It strains at the leash, begging to be let loose, and jiggles and wiggles on ripply Expressway concrete,
so it doesn’t make for a particularly restful cruise. But shift to a typical Indian highway, single-carriageway with trucks going at 20 in your lane and at 120 in the oncoming one, and the Accent is a champ. It’s massively torquey and responsive through the bottom and middle of the rev-band and gearing is pretty short; acceleration is fantastic in any gear, so you can pop out and overtake with a big grin at that truck coming down at you.
The Fiesta being a Ford, we’d expected a bundle of laughs in the ghats, and took it straight there. And... oh dear. It’s not great. It’s much too grown-up for that. The Fiesta wears a mental three-piece suit: doing anything as unseemly as cornering appears to be below its dignity. It’ll change direction, certainly, and do it precisely and confidently, but you’ll never have much fun thrashing it. And there’s very little acceleration out of a corner, so you can’t really link bends the way you’d like. The Accent’s the opposite: hugely enthusiastic but not too capable. Grip is limited and steering feel rubbery, so you can’t fully rely on it in the ghats, and punching the numb brakes mid-corner will have it squealing horribly and skewing, so you feel a bit sweaty in a bend.
The interiors pose another problem. The Fiesta’s grabs you at first sight: there’s lots of nice fake-aluminium around and most things look nice, like the dials and diagonal door-grabs; the Accent’s looks clean and uncluttered but uninteresting, especially in the odd clotted cream-and-anthracite colour scheme our car had. However, look more closely and you see it’s the Accent which has the high-quality plastics and upholstery, while the Ford’s dash plastics and furry fabrics (though a good sight better than the Ikon’s) are a bit cheapo. Storage space is incredible, but the seats aren’t the most comfortable – and who exactly is that raised rear-seat centre meant for? Frodo Baggins? The Accent may not look as special, but it’s a lot more accommodating. The Fiesta’s a bit better when it comes to the boot though; the Accent’s is a bit shallow.
But get away from the long-distance trip and into the city, through godawful Ambedkar-jayanti traffic and the Hyundai charms you. It complains with shocking loudness when you let the revs go very low, but that’s all showboating – it pulls perfectly well even from 1000rpm, and didn’t stumble once. It’s the only car I’ve actually had fun with in traffic; the easy controls and top responses make it light on its feet, letting you poke into gaps and get around with no worries about the chap in the next lane stealing your spot.
City traffic doesn’t exactly daunt the Fiesta, but it isn’t really your best friend here. The steering and pedals (particularly the clutch) are heavy, so you can’t twirl from lane to lane, and the combination of weak-ish bottom-end and long gearing make it slightly ponderous at rush hour. Visibility is very good, but it feels wide, not a car you’d dare squeeze into gaps.
So far, it’s close. Fuel economy, usually the clincher, is another problem: both were extremely good, with a combined highway/city figure of 15.19kpl for the Fiesta and 15.43 for the Accent. How exactly are we to choose? The pricing doesn’t help: the Accent’s yours for Rs 7.5 lakh, the Fiesta for Rs 7.3 lakh (ex-showroom Mumbai).
Giving a verdict is tough. Try and imagine Cate Blanchett in Bandits, speaking to the Ford and Hyundai instead of to Bruce Willis and Billy Bob Thornton. “You, Fiesta, you’re handsome, sophisticated, mature. You’re safe and precise around corners, efficient and well-priced, but you’re, well, a bit dull. You really need to loosen up. And you, Accent, you’re peppy, nimble, fast and a lot of fun, more than I’d ever have thought. You’re better on quality than the Ford – if you were just a bit less noisy, and didn’t fidget as much. I can’t choose between the two of you, because together, you’re the perfect midsize diesel.” Life, however, is unlike that brilliant, Bohemian movie: you have to choose. And it’s a difficult one. On points the Fiesta takes it, as a car precisely engineered for its market, and as the new product it’ll take the lion’s share of sales, but it’s the Accent that has the heart. Dammit, you decide.