A convoy of Fiesta owners returned to the Almussafes factory site for the model’s 50th anniversary in Spain. Club president Mark Urosa led it in the family car he repaired after a serious crash.
On Saturday 17 October, a local police escort led Mark Urosa and a convoy of Fiesta owners to Ford’s Almussafes facilities for the model’s 50th-anniversary gathering in Spain. The drive began at the municipal multi-purpose court and brought the cars back to the place where the Fiesta’s story in Spain began. Henry Ford II laid the factory’s first stone on 26 March 1974; the first Fiesta rolled off the Almussafes line on 18 October 1976, and the plant officially opened about a week later in the presence of King Juan Carlos I.
From behind the wheel, Urosa watched the line of cars in his mirror and began to cry. Months of preparation had led to that moment. For him, the convoy represented people who had travelled hundreds of kilometres to share a passion for the model.
Many of the cars at the event had been built at Almussafes, some decades earlier. Their return made the anniversary feel like a homecoming. Fiesta production at the plant ended in 2012, but the model remains closely associated with its early history: on 2 January 1981, the factory produced its one-millionth Fiesta. Ford’s own Almussafes anniversary was also covered in earlier factory coverage.
Over its first 50 years, Almussafes built more than 10 million vehicles. Annual production peaked at 449,000 cars in 2004; in 1977, the plant had already assembled about 214,000 vehicles. Spanish news agency Europa Press reported the milestone figures as the factory marked its anniversary.
One car in the convoy carried a particularly personal history. Urosa’s mother bought their sixth-generation Fiesta in November 2005, when he was almost four. The 1.6 TDCi has remained part of his life ever since.
An accident left the car so badly damaged that declaring it a total loss was considered. Urosa chose to repair and repaint it himself. After months of work, the same Fiesta travelled from Asturias to Almussafes and led the anniversary convoy.
The family’s connection to the club began with Urosa’s father, a taxi driver who spotted a blue Ford Focus carrying a Club Ford Focus 2005 sticker. His parents joined that club, and his mother founded Club Ford Fiesta España in 2007. It began as an online forum where owners could exchange mechanical advice and arrange weekend meetings.
Urosa gradually took on more responsibility as his mother found it harder to run the club alongside work and family responsibilities. Around three years ago he became more involved, and this year the group restarted its original forum. Formalising the club as an association proved a major obstacle; for weeks, organisers feared bureaucracy could force them to cancel the Almussafes gathering.
Ford España supported the event and lent the Doble V prototype for its anniversary exhibition. A photograph bringing together a representative car from each of the Fiesta’s eight generations captured another part of the weekend: owners meeting people they had spoken with for months but had never seen in person.
The club’s next planned milestone is the 20th anniversary of its founding in 2027. Almussafes, meanwhile, is preparing for a new industrial phase from 2028, including work with China’s Geely and a battery plant scheduled to begin operations that year.
