September 9th Dover to Cologne

There’s two ways to reach the German border, either via Lille and Mons, or head up the coast to Dunkirk and then east to Brussels. We do the latter. The good news is that we miss the dreadful traffic around Brussels and sweep around the city on the ring road towards Aachen. The Fiestas are doing cracking fuel mileage which with a decent tank size is a major boon on a road trip this long.

We’re heading for Cologne’s history museum and a rather special Fiesta. Finding the museum is a piece of cake as it’s in the shadow of the Cologne’s famous cathederal. On top of the museum’s tower there’s a gold Fiesta complete with a pair of angel wings. It was created by a famous German sculptor and put in place in the 1980s. Which is why the car is a Fiesta MK2. Cologne is Ford’s European headquarters and a major builder of the Fiesta – as we’ll shortly find out when we’re given a tour of the production line.

It took the line workers at Ford’s Cologne factory 13.5 hours to build each one of our Fiestas. That’s pretty good going and even more so when you consider that 3.5 hours of that involves painting the bare shell. Today around 1,850 Fiestas will roll off the production line, all fitted with UK- built diesel or petrol engines.

If you ever get the chance to go inside a car factory jump at it. It’s a mixture of theatre and the clinical cleanliness and organisation of an operating theatre. Overseeing the whole operation is Martin Chapman, operations manager. He’s only been at Cologne for a year but seems to have everything under control. ‘We build Fiestas and a small number of Fusions here,’ says Chapman, ‘although the Fusions are being phased out and the line will be Fiesta only.’

Ford’s Cologne factory is the headquarters of Ford Europe where not only the Fiesta is produced, but other models in the range are designed, prototyped and engineered. The massive site was opened in 1931 on the banks of the Rhine. Today a third of new Fiestas are literally shipped by river.

The factory has grown considerably over the decades and today is a vast complex that includes suppliers’ plants from which components such as wiring harnesses are delivered via an 800 metre conveyor belt to the final assembly hall. The cars themselves enter on a movering track, entering from one side as bare shells before being painted. Finally, after being fitted with engines, suspension and interiors the fuel tank is given a splash of fuel and the finished car is started up and driven off the end of the line. And yes, we didn’t see one that failed to start at the twist of the key.

Now that our two Fiestas have visited their birthplace it’s time to move on. Tomorrow is a petrolhead’s dream.

Follow the FORD FIESTA WORLD TOUR here!