By Rebaneilwe Semakane

The Ford Figo has been a fairly decent looking hatchback but now Ford has totally redone it, making it look ultra-new and modern. There are so many new changes to this car, and uncovering all of them was interesting.

The exterior has done a whole 180. It really lost all the blandness of the previous model and now it’s got an eye-catching grille and bug-like headlights.  The back is also flat and does not protrude like the predecessors one. In all honesty the car looks great, one again I was delighted about the placement of the door handles, C-pillar ones are a little annoying.

On to the interior and I was a little underwhelmed. Coming from such an awesome exterior, you’d expect more from the inside. The fact that the steering wheel has no functionality buttons was disappointing as now you need to remove your hand from the steering to answer a call or change a song on the infotainment system. Speaking of the infotainment system, that also was quite lacklustre. A tiny screen and endless buttons around it, quite a bore. Nonetheless the inside is actually spacious, everything is correctly placed. The door bins are deep and wide so that is a major plus for me. The sound system is decent, not too shabby for a car of its calibre.  The boot space is okay, but a bit too narrow for my liking. I did manage to fit quite a number of bags though, just had to squeeze them in a bit. Rear seats have enough space for occupants to sit comfortably, which is important as I always have friends with me when we go somewhere.

The unit I had was the 1.5 AT Trend, which has 88kW and 150Nm and is really nimble. It fares well in traffic; I had an enjoyable time driving in and around Johannesburg with relative ease. There is some noise that comes about when you accelerate harder, sounds as though it’s struggling to pull itself but ultimately the output is good so one can look past that. The Figo is quite thirsty, surprisingly. Ford claims a consumption of 5.9l/100km. I filled up once with my time with it, and managed to leave it with a quarter of a tank.

One can say that this car is aimed at young adults or first time car buyers. Starting at R181, 300, it’s safe to say that this is decently priced car and you get a lot for your money.