Ford Fiesta The Ford Fiesta has been ranked as the best selling car in Britain ever. The class leading B-segment hatch has now been bought enough times to enable it to overtake the Ford Escort, surpassing the discontinued Escort’s 4,105,961 sales with a recorded 4,115,000 as of July 2014. First launched in 1976, the Fiesta has passed through seven generations. Much development of the Fiesta has taken place in the UK, with the current Mk7 having had all of its engines developed at Ford’s Research and Development Centre in Dunton, and Ford’s Dagenham Diesel Centre in East London.