There’s plenty of life in this urban SUV from Ford

THE Ford EcoSport that I drove last week came in a very attractive amber colour, which certainly made it stand out in the supermarket car park.

I was never great on colours and I thought it looked like amber or rust-coloured, but when Deirdre in Rialto Ford handed me the keys of the car she said that the official colour was Mars Red.

Over 40 years ago David Bowie wrote a song wondering if there was life on Mars. We still don’t know, but there is certainly plenty of life in this urban SUV from Ford.

First impressions were that with the spare wheel attached to the outside of the boot door, made it look like Toyota’s Rav4. Then the colour reminded me of one its likely rivals the Renault Captur, as Renault’s test car also came in a colour something close to Mars Red. So all going well then in the comparison stakes for the EcoSport, which is based on the Fiesta platform.

The EcoSport is among the first Ford vehicles in Europe to be equipped with Ford SYNC with AppLink for voice control of smartphone apps to include Spotify and TomTom. It’s also the first-ever SUV to be offered with a 1.0-litre engine, an engine that has proved very frugal in other Ford cars.

We get so many diesel test cars nowadays, it was a change to get a petrol version. It’s also available in a 1.5 diesel, but with Ford you are never going to have a mis-fueling problem as the unleaded and diesel nozzles are a different size.

I liked the high driving position, as did all my passengers. As the EcoSport is based on the Fiesta you get a typical Ford design on the dash, which means everything is well laid out. The controls for the radio and air conditioning, which I think are the most important ones, are very easy to use.

The boot is a decent size, but you just need to be careful with the boot door when opening it. It extends a good bit out and you need a decent bit of space when opening. I could envisage the situation if you are in a hurry packing for a trip that you could get the children just to stand there in line and just throw everything into the boot!

Prices start at

?¬23,995 for 1.0 litre petrol, which as I said earlier is very lively and also very frugal. I’m told the diesel version is even more economical. Naturally you will have to pay for extras like Ford SYNC and reversing camera.

A black trim around the bottom of the doors provides a very stylish contrast to the Mars Red. The location of the spare wheel attached to the outside of the boot door gives this mini SUV that rugged look.

It’s practical and I liked it from the moment I saw it. The EcoSport was first introduced in Brazil in 2003 where it sold very well. It should do well here also, but its biggest rivals could in Ford’s own stable with the Focus and B-Max.