The era of the £10k hatchback is firmly in the rearview mirror.
When new drivers tentatively step on to his forecourt, used car salesman Josh Clayman says they are often looking for a familiar product: the Ford Fiesta. Alongside classics such as the Vauxhall Corsa or the Fiat 500, the Fiesta’s low price and stalwart performance have made it an obvious first car for generations of young Britons. The Fiesta is the UK’s best-selling car in the used market. More than 306,000 changed hands in 2024 alone, according to new data published by the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders (SMMT). But if you were so minded, you would struggle to find one after Ford discontinued the Fiesta in summer 2023, ending a thumping production run that stretched back 47 years. This year, Ford will also discontinue the Ford Focus, traditionally seen as the next model up. The decisions underline a broader trend that has been quietly taking hold in the automotive market for years: the disappearance of the affordable car.
By the time it was phased out, the Fiesta’s starting price had increased to more than £19,000 compared to less than £10,000 just a decade earlier.
The starting price of the Vauxhall Corsa has also nearly doubled to £18,500, with the Fiat 500 jumping from about £10,000 to just under £17,000.
On the one hand, cars are getting bigger and more expensive because that is what consumers want. With greater size comes plusher furnishings, better entertainment systems and more robust safety protections. The explosion in demand for SUVs is held up as proof of this, with their share of the UK’s new car market having grown from 12pc a decade ago to 33pc in 2024 – making them the single most popular category. But on the other hand, companies blame a blizzard of safety and emissions laws for making entry-level cars more expensive to manufacture, as well as government regulations designed to mandate sales of electric vehicles (EVs). At the same time, manufacturers are having to develop entirely new line-ups of electric vehicles to comply with policies such as the UK’s ZEV mandate. These have tended to be bigger so far, because it is easier to adopt larger vehicles for electric drivetrains and batteries.
Today, there is no entry-level vehicle on the market for a comparable price to the Ford Fiesta of 2013, which sold for as little as £9,795 (about £13,500 in today’s money). The cheapest five-door hatchback is Kia’s Picanto, according to consumer champion Which?, selling for about £15,600 apiece. This is one reason that more Britons appear to be holding on to their vehicles for longer. The number of cars on the road that are less than five years old is expected to fall to 11m by 2026, down from about 14m in 2019, according to Auto Trader. Used car prices are also on the rise. In the past decade, the typical cost of a used car has rocketed from £7,580 to £14,788.
“Young people are really struggling to buy a cheap car, you can’t get a decent car for under a grand,” says Charlie Starns, of used car dealership Essex Car Dealer. Erin Baker, of Auto Trader, believes the age of the truly cheap hatchback is over: “The SUV is the only model anyone is interested in buying,” she says. “You are never going to get back to a point where your first car is £750 or £1,000.”
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