2019 Ford Fiesta vs Mazda 2

What's the difference?

The new-generation Ford Fiesta ST is instantly more appealing than its predecessor - it is smarter inside, more efficient and more powerful, more enjoyable and better to look at. There is no denying it will appeal to more people, even if it does miss out on the crucial automatic transmission that so many buyers want. 

I just really hope Ford helps it along by making the five-door model available to local buyers, because it would be the best move - for the brand, and its potential customers. 

My advice is this: If you love the Mazda2 aesthetically, which is totally understandable, spend the extra money on a Maxx.

The Neo might have the Mazda hallmarks - a decent engine, good handling, killer looks and standard safety gear - but it's the extra multimedia and better-quality trim in the Maxx that make it more sense for your dollar.

If you're aiming for under $20,000, also consider a Suzuki Swift GL Navi, which can be optioned with better safety or a Hyundai Accent, which has a bigger boot.

It's less nosey than before - there's no doubt about that. The new Fiesta looks much better proportioned than its precursor, with an upright grille, sweeping lines through the body, and a "perfect" proportion between the metal and glass… according to the chief designer of the car. For what it's worth, I tend to agree - both in three- and five-door guise, this thing is a looker.

At the rear the tail-lights are now horizontal, rather than vertical, and that helps broaden the car visually, hunkering it down to the road. And in actual fact, the new-generation Fiesta ST is bigger in all the important directions than its predecessor: it is now 4068mm long (+93mm), 1735mm wide (+26mm) and the wheelbase is longer, too, now at 2493mm (+4mm). It's lower to the ground, as well: now 1469mm (-26mm).

Those dimensions are identical between three- and five-door models, and you can make your own mind up about which you prefer. But to me, there's a clear distinction between them: the three-door could be considered a bit of a selfish option - a car that's designed for the driver primarily, and that's undoubtedly a worthy attribute for a pint-size hot hatch; the five-door version is a more sensible option - it doesn't suffer enormous doors, and the packaging and practicality is pretty good for a little hatchback.

No matter the number of doors, the Fiesta ST gets clever door-ding protecting flip out barriers, the same as you see on a Skoda Kodiaq. It's a very nice piece of thoughtful design, especially for the three-door, because the doors themselves are massive for the size of the car.

The ST rolls on either 17- or 18-inch wheels, and it's unclear what we'll get (our money is on 18s). And it's still unclear if we'll get the three-door, the five-door, or maybe both. One would think that if Ford Australia was clever, it would try and maximise the options for buyers, because it's already excluding 90 per cent of the market by not offering an automatic transmission.

What draws most people to the Mazda2 in the first place is its great looks. Mazda don't patronize entry-level buyers with a sub-par econobox that doesn't reflect the rest of its range. It shares all the 'Kodo' design language that has become so prevalent on Australia's roads.

That consists of a tastefully executed exterior, with a sophisticated grille, classy chrome touches and strategically placed smatterings of black plastic. Around the side, there's the brand's signature swooping lines, making for a sporty silhouette, toward a slick and resolved rear end. Few cars in this segment or price point can compete. Too bad about those steel wheels.

Inside, the design is just as good, but it's the materials which unfortunately take a dive. Good stuff includes the multi-textured surfaces, with tastefully applied contrast surfaces of chrome and carbon texture.

The dot-matrix multimedia control panel is a bit of a sore spot and is hardly ergonomic to reach across and use.

There's great switchgear, with a tasteful but simple dash cluster. The wheel is one of the better ones in this class in terms of its look, but the acrylic finish is truly nasty. The same goes for the functional but sub-par touchpoints across the doors and rear seats. A centre-console box for resting your elbow on is a $479.35 option.

One personal gripe, which I've heard from other folks in the office as well as private Mazda2 owners, is the odd placement of the wing-mirrors. They're too close to the driver and seem to give a narrow angle of view, leading to a significant blind spot.

If there was a criticism that could be levelled at the old ST, it was that the interior felt like it hadn't moved on from its 2013 roots. The new one? Well, it's definitely up to date, even if it is also clearly based on an affordable hatchback and therefore has a few of less than luscious plastics.

There's the now typical tablet style media screen front and centre on the dashboard, an 8.0-inch touch-capacitive unit with the latest Ford Sync 3 interface, in-built sat nav, a crisp reversing camera display with active steering guidelines, and Apple CarPlay/Android Auto smartphone mirroring technology. It works well, and looks a helluva lot better than the existing car's 4.2-inch TFT with Sync 1.1.

The seats in the test vehicles were Recaro buckets, which may be a little tight at the base for broader-hipped individuals (yours truly included), but they offer terrific support and bracing in corners thanks to the huge body-hugging bolsters.

The seats also feature plenty of adjustment, including manual height adjust for the base, and tilt adjust as well. 

Of course there are the usual storage bits and bobs up front - a pair of cupholders between the front seats (with illumination), a smallish centre console bin, and a pair of slim door pockets. 

The back seat of the three-door and five-door models is suitable for getting you and your friends or children from one place to another, but it wouldn't be an enjoyable long-distance road trip car. And if you happen to go through some corners, you'll struggle to find anything to hang on to in the back (in a three-door, in particular) as there are no roof grab handles at all (three- or five-door). 

The back seat does have ISOFIX and child-seat anchor points, but it misses out on some basic inclusions: there is no fold-down centre armrest, no rear cupholders, and only a couple of small storage areas - whether the model you're in has five doors or three. There are no rear air vents, either, but it's a pretty small car.

The boot is a good size for this class, too, with 311 litres of cargo capacity - easily enough for a couple of weekend bags. There's a space-saver spare wheel under the floor - unless you get a car with the Bang & Olufsen stereo system, which uses that area for a subwoofer and instead includes a "tyre management kit". 

The simple fact is, there are far more practical options in this segment. The Mazda2 has a small boot, zero amenities for rear-seat passengers, and limited on-board space.

Front passengers are treated to bottle holders in the doors, a conveniently phone-sized trench under the connectivity ports, a wallet-sized trench next to the analog handbrake and... well that's about it. The seat grants a nice low seating position, but is a bit flimsy, even for this segment.

Back-seat passengers get... not much. The seats have decent contouring to them, but there's only just enough leg and headroom for someone my size (182cm tall). There are no cupholders, no air vents and only a strange square trench atop the transmission tunnel for your loose objects.

Boot space is a rather limited 250-litres in the hatch. It's much smaller than competitors like the Kia Rio and Hyundai Accent, while landing on-par with its arch-nemesis Suzuki Swift.

If you're in love with the 2 and want a larger storage space, you can do so by choosing the sedan at no extra cost. Doing so will grant 440L of space.

The Mazda2 Neo is incredibly cheap.

Not only is it the cheapest Mazda on sale, but it's also one of the cheapest mainstream cars in this class. Arriving at $17,320 (MSRP) for the auto as tested here it seems to be a pretty good value proposition, no matter which way you cut it.

Only, Thera are a few rather glaring issues. The first is the Neo's media screen. It doesn't have one.

You get this lovely, clearly tacked-on, single-line dot-matrix display, controlled through some clumsy buttons and a single dial.

Obviously, it comes with rudimentary connectivity (forget fancy stuff like Apple CarPlay) and is so difficult to use I actually couldn't figure out how to change the clock when daylight saving ticked over.

You won't get alloy wheels, LED lights, automatic high beams, automatic anything (like folding mirrors or headlamps) or leather-bound anything. The idea is you'll immediately notice a difference jumping into a $20,080 automatic Maxx, with its media screen and much better materials.

Thankfully, the Neo does come with some important quality-of-life items that are missing on some competitors, like cruise control and auto-off lights.

You also get city-speed auto emergency braking, which is an important value add at this price. More on that in the safety section.

The 1.5-litre three-cylinder turbocharged petrol engine matches the power output of the existing model (well, the old model on overboost, anyway), with 147kW at 6000rpm. That's pretty amazing horsepower from a triple.

The torque figure needn't be sneezed at, either with 290Nm from 1600-4000rpm. That's 50Nm more than the old car (or 20Nm more if you're talking the overboost numbers), across a slightly narrower rev range. But the tractability of the engine is superb. Read the driving section below for more on that.

Oh, and you might want to know the 0-100km/h time, too? It's 6.5 seconds, which is 0.4sec quicker than the claimed 0-100 time of the existing car, and that's despite the fact it's quite a bit heavier than the existing model: three-door for three-door, the weight is up 90kg (now 1262kg), and the five-door is 21kg. Top speed is claimed at 232km/h.

Powering the Mazda2 is just one engine, a 1.5-litre non-turbo four cylinder, although the Neo is the only one in the range with the lower-compression de-specified version. It produces 79kW/139Nm.

These power figures are on-par with much of the competition, but in reality (and perhaps as a sad testament to many of the cars in this segment) it feels relatively good.

Part of this is thanks to the six-speed automatic transmission, which is better than a CVT or four-speed auto.

The new Fiesta ST is claimed to use 6.0 litres per 100 kilometres, which is high for a three-cylinder engine… well, if it were an economy-tuned three-cylinder. But it's still pretty good for a hot hatch.

And the 1.5-litre is the first three-cylinder from Ford to offer a cylinder deactivation system, which can make the engine run on two cylinders only under low loads. You can hear it and feel it when that happens, but it's apparently good to help you save about 6 per cent on fuel consumption when it does. 

Over a very - shall we say - spirited drive in the mountains behind Nice in France, I saw just over 10 litres per hundred indicated on the dashboard.

Mazda's claimed combined fuel usage figure for the Neo hatch is 7.2L/100km,and I recorded around 7.6L/100km over a week of testing. That's not far off the claimed figure, but it's a high number to begin with, many larger, turbocharged engines in heavier cars will produce better, or even lower figures.

The 2 drinks standard 91 RON unleaded fuel and has a 44-litre tank.

I love the character and sound of three-cylinder cars - I own two of them, a Mini Cooper and a Volkswagen up! - and anyone who may have thought that the charm of the Fiesta ST could be damaged by the swap from four to three cylinders, you needn't fear. It's more loveable than ever.

The way the engine sears with power and punches its torque out is phenomenal, a true testament to Ford's engineers that have made something thoroughly entertaining with the 2019 Fiesta ST.

Of course it still has a six-speed manual - it's a Euro hot hatch, after all - but still no automatic, dual-clutch or otherwise. It's a good little gearbox, with decent shift feel and a light but usable clutch. The throw is a little long, and first gear is pretty short, but it's easy enough to pedal through the gears.

There is a launch control system that'll hold revs for you, allowing you to dump the clutch and take off very speedily. And if you're worried about just how quick you're going, there's a digital speedometer in the middle of the manual gauge cluster. It's a shame the new Fiesta doesn't get the same 12.0-inch digital driver display that the Mustang has - it would have lifted the interior ambience even more.

It also lacks a rev matching system - aaaaaand you get that sporty tech in the a new-generation base model manual Corolla. 

The traction on offer is immense - as you may expect, the vehicle we tested with the Quaife limited-slip differential clambered out of tight corners tremendously, where the car with the open diff was more of a handful in the twisty stuff. 

There's also a torque vectoring (by braking) system, which will grab the brake of the inside front wheel to enhance the turn response, and if you want to, you can provoke the back end to step around on itself to a degree - if you opt for the Sport ESC setting and Sport drive mode and find a series of hairpins, the Fiesta ST will cock its back leg more than an eager dog on a morning walk. 

We didn't sample Race Mode, because we weren't at a race track. Safety first… and as it was, we had to dodge public holiday cyclists by the hundred, and speeding Renault Kangoo drivers that seemed to have forgotten what side of the road they were supposed to be on.

There is no Individual or Custom mode, so you can't pick and choose settings you might want to. 

There is some torque-steer to contend with, but rather than being annoying, it's actually pretty endearing - and the ultra-quick steering (a 12:1 ratio electric steering set-up, the quickest ever from Ford) makes you feel more dialled-in to the drive experience. 

While some of my fellow Aussie journos had questions over a slight fuzziness to the steering on-centre, I had no such complaints with the way this car tipped into a tight bend or changed direction part way through.

Another dialled-in element is the suspension - the front end is a MacPherson strut set-up with twin-tube dampers and a thick (22.5mm) anti-roll bar, the rear a torsion beam arrangement that is stiffer than anything else to have come from Ford Performance. 

The most surprising bit is how nicely the Fiesta ST rides. It is undeniably more comfortable than the existing model (I got a lift in one just two days before the launch drive), and while our test loop wasn't the typical rat-run through the back streets of Sydney or Melbourne, it promises to be well sorted when it comes to bump and body control. 

The Mazda2's more traditional engine and transmission, combined with its small footprint and lightweight body, give it a spritely and agile feel on the road.

For better or worse, it's very mechanical, you still feel each gear change, and you're fairly connected to the road.

It beats most competitor set-ups in terms of feel and real-world power application, and has fast, accurate steering, making it easy to dart down alleyways, and park in tight spots in congested cities.

It does so in decent comfort, but this is one noisy little car. Road noise and engine roar (from as little as 2500rpm) reach the cabin easily, and its lightweight bodywork gives it a bit of a tinny feeling.

The 2 is fun to drive, thanks to a low seating position and a suspension setup lets you feel closer to the road than something like a Kia Rio or Toyota Yaris, but the stiffness of the ride can also cause it to become unsettled over bumps.

As a driver's car, it's one of the better ones in this segment, alongside the Suzuki Swift. You're left with few options, though – given the Yaris, Rio and Accent are all more comfortable, but feel rather lethargic in comparison.

It's really up to personal taste whether you prefer refinement over fun, as you'll have to spend much more to get both.

One big drawcard of the Mazda2 is its inclusion of city-speed auto emergency braking (AEB) across the range, even here in the Neo.

Few competitors bother to pack this one key active safety item into their kit.

Regular safety refinements on the 2 include six airbags and the standard suite of electronic stability controls. There are two ISOFIX child seat mounting points on the rear outer seats. Sorry, long-range drivers, a space-saver spare resides under the boot floor.

All variants of the 2 carry a maximum five-star ANCAP safety rating since 2015.

The Mazda2 is facing increasingly stiff competition on this front from the Suzuki Swift, which now comes with a suite of active safety items on the GL Navi with safety pack ($18,990). For only $1670 more than the Neo, you'll get freeway-speed AEB, active cruise control, lane-departure warning (LDW), and lane-keep assist. Not bad.

It's a much more promising ownership program than it once was, with Ford having recently introduced a five-year/unlimited kilometre warranty across all of its models (purchased from May 1, 2018). Previously the brand backed its cars with a three-year/100,000km plan.

There will be capped-price servicing under Ford's 'Service Price Promise' plan, which will span the life of the car, as it does with all Ford models. The previous plan required servicing every 12 months/15,000km and it is expected that will be the same for the new model.

Ford will also update the Sync 3 sat nav maps for seven years from the date of purchase if you maintain your car with them throughout.

Mazda offers a five-year, unlimited-kilometre warranty across its range, which is on par for most manufacturers. The Kia Rio leads this segment with its seven-year, unlimited kilometre promise.

Mazda matches its five-year warranty with five years of capped price servicing. Service intervals occur at 10,000km or 12 months, whichever occurs first. The program has a not-unreasonable average yearly cost of $305.60 and has reasonably priced extras like brake fluid and cabin air filters.