Ford Fiesta Vignale Edition Review

Interior

Once you step inside, you can see where your money goes. There’s leather on the dash, door trims, arm rest and even on the handbrake. The seats are covered in black quilted leather, with a good amount of comfort – that’s the same for the rear seats, too. There’s convenient features that come with the Vignale, like the comfort pack which gets front heated seats and a heated steering wheel, cushty. There’s also blind spot integrated system, adaptive cruise control and handy door edge protectors.

On top of the dash is the 8-inch infotainment touch screen, that now comes as standard on the base model Fiesta. The Vignale uses the Ford Sync 3 system, which comes with Sat Nav, DAB, Bluetooth, USB, and it’s compatible with Android Auto and Apple CarPlay. You’ll find the system sits in the perfect position when you’re driving, and has sharp, responsive graphics with a variety of display settings. The only thing I wasn’t keen on was the ‘Dark mode’, as most of the screen turns into a deep blue colour, rather than black. Which isn’t so easy on your eyes when you’re driving at night-time.

Let’s not forget about that Bang & Olufsen surround sound system, with 10 speakers including a subwoofer that lives in the boot area. Like the older model year Fiesta’s, the subwoofer lived where the space saver would normally be. Now, even though the sub now lives inside of the offside rear quarter panel (like the new Ford Puma), you still can’t get a space saver in the Vignale, an inflation kit is there instead. Meh.

The Fiesta doesn’t have the biggest boot size in its class, but that’s not to say the boot size is small. There’s 292-litres without the rear seat area and 1,093-litres with.

Verdict

The Vignale makes the Fiesta feel more grown up inside, and so it should. It comes with a tonne of features and you can tell it looks kitted out, just by looking at it from the outside. Apart from the full LED headlights, an openable panoramic roof and those 18-inch alloys, it gets every optional feature as standard. But I get the same feeling about it as I did with the Fiesta Active. It’s just doesn’t work. The Fiesta (as most of us know) are generally fun cars, easy to live with and reliable – which the Vignale is. There’re also supposed to be reasonably priced – which the Vignale isn’t, and that’s why it doesn’t work for me.

Are you ready for that price I was on about earlier? How about £23,185. Once you’ve fully spec’d it up, it’ll cost just under £27k. That’s Fiesta ST money. £27k will even get you a decent Focus. You’ll do better to stick with either the Titanium or ST-Line Edition models and add the extras that’ll actually benefit you. Sure, you get comfy seats and soft touch materials here and there. But I really, honestly can’t say it’s worth the extra money.