Funny reactions!

[Lannis]

Bought my Festiva sight unseen ... had no idea that it would have so much room in it.

I get a lot of comments from folks about a "big guy in a small car" ... and when I see another Festiva on the road, I know what they mean!

I'm 6'2" and on the north side of 21 stone, so I let the comments go on by, because there's so much room and so much visibility that it's one of the easiest-driving cars I've ever had.

Once, I shared a parking space with a "Smart Car" and we both fit!

Lannis

[litesong]

The guys at work would look at my Festiva & asked why I drove a half-car around. That was 20+ years ago. All their cars are gone. My Festiva is still driving to work.

Fairly recently, one of the guys tried to funnily intimidate me with his Hummer which he drove up very close to the side of my Festiva. Looking down on me, he bragged that he got 10mpg. Then he took off. I then told some of the guys that over 400,000 miles, my Festiva would use 10,000 or less gallons of fuel. He would use 40,000 gallons of fuel. At $4 dollars a gallon, I would save $120,000. Well, that message circulated back to him real quick. The next day he came up to me & said he wouldn't have his Hummer that long for 400,000 miles. I said, "that's for sure, but a number of people keep their Festivas 400,000 miles".

[geezerstiva]

^^great story!

My mom used to work in a Ford dealer and they used to say they put festivas in the trunk of ltds instead of a spare tire.

[blacklabels]

Every day i get some dumb remark about my car usally about the tires and them trying to pawn there old wheelbarrow tires off so my car has new tires lol.

[litesong]

The guys at work would look at my Festiva & asked why I drove a half-car around. That was 20+ years ago. All their cars are gone. My Festiva is still driving to work.

Fairly recently, one of the guys tried to funnily intimidate me with his Hummer which he drove up very close to the side of my Festiva. Looking down on me, he bragged that he got 10mpg. Then he took off. I then told some of the guys that over 400,000 miles, my Festiva would use 10,000 or less gallons of fuel. He would use 40,000 gallons of fuel. At $4 dollars a gallon, I would save $120,000. Well, that message circulated back to him real quick. The next day he came up to me & said he wouldn't have his Hummer that long for 400,000 miles. I said, "that's for sure, but a number of people keep their Festivas 400,000 miles".

[Crankworm]

I had a guy in a prius shake his head as he passed me. Maybe he realized we get the same fuel mileage but my total investment is less then one of his monthly payments

[Oren09]

I love Priiii.
Not really. Their giant batteries are as bad as if not worse worse than our 20 year old cars' CO emissions.
And I really love when a Prius flies by me on the highway. That is very fuel efficient....

[Advancedynamix]

Someone called mine a Yugo once...
.

A guy did that to me last week! He said, " that's sure one fast Yugo ya got there"

I told him it was a Festiva. For the rest of the conversation he called it a Fiesta. I give up.

[geezerstiva]

Why do people think its fiesta??? I've been through that a lot. I'm like its FESTIVA people! Get it right :lol:

[Aaronbrook37]

Why do people think its fiesta??? I've been through that a lot. I'm like its FESTIVA people! Get it right :lol:

Linguistic association and perception. The vocabulary is so deeply entrenched in their semantic expression that it is completely subconscious. The same thing happens in all parts of daily life... another prominent example that comes to mind is mistaking the popular fashion brand as Tommy Hillfinger rather than Hillfiger. There's no N there... never was, never will be.

Similarly, it seems to be common with restaurants and stores to inherently add or remove apostrophe s on the end of certain destination - "We're going to Milestone's". In Canada especially, this is popular for retail establishments with family names in them. Why? Well look at all of the restaurants that do this inherently - Kelsey's, Denny's, etc. It becomes an entrenched norm that it should be a possessive expression if there's an owner's name on the brand. Levi's Jeans is another popular example of integrated possession.

Often times the ubiquity of an exception to a rule in grammar or expression paves the way for a trend or manipulation of the language... it's what makes English so fascinating. This is the reason they say Fiesta... because there's no other use of Festiva in our dialects or accents. Particularly, it is hard for the brain to process the emphasis of how it is spelled and pronounced given it is wholly distinct from words like festival or stevia for example.

On the other hand, you can find fiestas almost anywhere across North America. Buffets, cultural sub-communities, various retail outlets, and all sorts of communities have fiestas all the time. There's also some merit to the argument that presupposes the legacy of Ford actually having sold a Fiesta both historically and today contributing to the problem. But rest assured it's a relatively harmless and pointless exercise to be frustrated by... because it's just the nature of the way the human brain processes foreign information.

[Oren09]

Why do people think its fiesta??? I've been through that a lot. I'm like its FESTIVA people! Get it right :lol:

My dad always calls it a Fiesta...

[hefty]

I did a power slide into my brothers driveway while he was sitting on the front porch. He was laughing so hard and then said " its like a golf cart with a lawn mower engine"

[Flyin4stroke]

Holy **** this things fast!

The funniest part is when u hear your friends tell somebody how fast it is. They try to explain it but can't.

Then alot of people ask of its turbo. As of it wasn't pretty obvious.

[DriverOne]

My mom: There's a lot of room in this little car! I'm surprised! Not only that, but it's comfortable! I want one!

It's a shame that these cars aren't made anymore. People might actually be able to afford them. But that's not what the loan companies want, is it?

[litesong]

....I told him it was a Festiva. For the rest of the conversation he called it a Fiesta.

Let people call it anything they want. I'm the one NOT going to the mechanic for major repairs. I'm the one NOT calling the AAA because I broke down. I'm the one getting 40 to 57mpg. I'm the one not needing to lease every 2 or 3 years to keep my ego from being depressed. I'm the one without a bellyache, because my car is draining $40,000 or more out of my account.