Ka Ka Ka

Nope, not the sound of crows but rather my second stint in a Tahitian rental car. Compared to the Fiesta, the Ka wasn’t nearly as impressive. Firstly, Kylie Minogue was nowhere to be found. The car was also pretty dinged up for having only 14K kilometers on it, but on a small island I guess it takes quite awhile to get there. Stepping inside, the exposed metal of the doors (which looks great in brighter colors, but rather dull in the scratched, dark green metallic of our rental), very cheap plastics and a broken glove box did little to light my fire. The swoopy dash styling makes a statement, but one that looks like it was made years ago. I liked the adjustment wand of the analog clock that also functions as the security system light when the car is switched off. One giant feature in the interior’s favor was the huge cup holder located rearwards of the front seats (so I guess that makes it the rear seat cup holder—but in a car so small, I’ll claim it). This carpeted cup holder that sprouts from the floor was able to hold my wife’s Nalgene bottle firmly in place throughout the entire drive. This giant water missile is a constant nemesis of mine. Until the Ka, my best attempt at taming this beast was an adjustable cup holder from Kragen that fit into a standard sized size cup holder and ratcheted out with giant, plastic fingers. Even this engineering feat was no match for a full Nalgene and a sporting driver. What really drives me nuts about the bottle is that it clings on for dear life until the absolute worst moment when it gives in to gravity and launches itself randomly about the cabin. Of course, I dearly love the huge capacity of the bottle, so I can’t disrespect the thing too much. Most of the time I was either following traffic or driving up some pockmarked, dog patrolled, winding road towards a waterfall so I didn’t get to check out the dynamics of the car. We drove around 100 or so miles, so I put in 10 liters and the gas gauge was back to where I found it. In the basic sense this car would be fine for commute in the city, but would really be tempted to save my pennies and step up to the bigger Fiesta or Honda Fit.

Please forgive the montage of photos from Ford's personal media stock. It was a bad photo day in Tahiti, so only one shot was taken of the car.