Before you get your hopes up on seeing that this sixth-gen facelift happens to be a stick shifter and is tucked away in the JPJ Putrajaya carpark, and might therefore be a 1.0 EcoBoost manual, it's not – this Ford Fiesta facelift is a 1.5 Ti-VCT model.
Regular pix contributor Anol Alias spotted the Arctic White B299 earlier in the week, and by the looks of it the car has been around for a while, looking a tad weathered (it's a mid-2013 production batch unit). No idea why it has suddenly popped up to sight – the only thing that would explain it would be type approval.
Could it be that there are plans to introduce a stick-shift baseline Fiesta model like in the past, with the pre-facelift 1.4 LX? If it does come about, expect the manual 1.5 to be bare-boned, and I mean bare-boned.
This particular B299 looks to be an Australian entry-level Ambiente trim specification unit (curiously enough, Ford Thailand is still advertising the pre-facelift Fiesta 1.5 and 1.4 variants).
The cues that give it away as such include 15-inch steel wheels with full covers, no front foglamps, manual air-conditioning – there's not even a single switch button on the steering wheel, which also happens to be missing any silver-accented garnish. You can probably forget about it having a Safety Pack and the accompanying seven airbags, for sure.
Closer to reality is the 1.0 EcoBoost model in its six-speed dual-clutch guise – we hear the debut will be sometime in April. No, we haven't heard if there are plans to bring in a stick-shifter version for that – unlikely, unless we get an Oz-spec car. The manual 1.0 EB isn't sold in Thailand, the four-door Titanium and five-door Sport hatch only available with the Getrag 6DCT250.
Read our Ford Fiesta facelift test drive reports on the 1.5 Sport and 1.0 EcoBoost.
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