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  For all the apparent boy racer allure of this particular Fiesta, it impresses in altogether more bourgeois ways. Photo Gallery

I think I?m supposed to be too old for the Ford Fiesta.

Young men wearing long sleeves under short and sporting hair deranged by product steal glances at our ”Vision” blue Zetec. It incites thrustiness in little fellows driving old Lancers sporting vast spoilers, farting exhausts and P-plates.

I am being overtaken more often than usual while I observe the speed limit in active school zones. The left wing mirror is my dearest friend, as yet another inflamed post-adolescent undercuts via the bus lane, before blundering right -- sans indicators -- into a space created only by my sharply-applied brakes. Worse, I’m beginning to empathise with this crowd. The little three-door Ford has a tendency to take a decade, if not two, off you. In a good way. Well, mainly good.

Realising around 10 litres per 100km in a car easily capable of using less than seven would suggest it’s time to start changing up before 6500rpm once in a while.

For all the apparent boy racer allure of this particular Fiesta, it impresses in altogether more bourgeois ways. If the visual statement that confronts the driver is a bit frantic, its quality fit and finish is obviously the work of Ford Europe as opposed to the Ford that’s driven itself to the brink of extinction by building big and stupid.

Paradox is that the Blue Oval’s viability rests in no slight degree on something so small and smart. Fortunately this is one Ford that leads a class which matters.