17 May 06
'I still feel very good about it,' says original designer Claude Lobo. 'In fact, we have three in the family. It drives nicely and has very good suspension - it's almost like a go-kart. Every time I see one in the street, I'm pleased with it. It's aged very well and, unlike other cars, it hasn't lost its charisma after four or five years. At the beginning, it wasn't easy to convince management and marketing because we were a little bit too far out there, but if you look at it now I think we were right.'
Looking at the stance, surface treatment and bold graphics on today's cars, the design legacy of the Ka is still clearly making its presence felt.
Yet the Ka itself continues to go from strength to strength. Despite the sheer age of its structural underpinnings, the restricted choice of variants and few mechanical changes - bar the long overdue replacement of the old pushrod 1.3-litre engine and the 1.6-litre SportKa option - it continues to sell well, even though there are now many more modern, better-packaged and more economical alternatives to choose from, regularly appearing in the list of Britain's top 10 best-selling cars in recent years.
Thanks to its low price and running costs, its enthusiastic dynamics, responsive controls, Ford dependability and its honest four-seater practicality, if you have ever owned or driven a Ka, you will know that its appeal goes far deeper than the sophisticated novelty of its metal skin.
With production of the Ka now nearing the 1.5m mark (including the StreetKa roadster, another story altogether), there are very strong grounds to suggest that the Ka is worthy of inclusion on the list of classic people's cars. Like Ford's Model T, the Austin 7, Volkswagen Beetle, Citroen 2CV, Fiat 500 and the famous Mini, the Ka shows that intelligent, sophisticated design needn't be expensive.
