It has been 30 years since the first Ford car deal for a small diesel-powered vehicle was struck.
Since then, the company has gone on to sell almost 119,000 of them annually and the Ford Fiesta has been named Small Car of the Year by Diesel Car magazine for the last three years.
It marks a great rise in popularity for diesel powered cars, which now account for 38.5 per cent of all Ford car sales.
The Fiesta has been the UK's best-selling car for the past five years, but back in 1984 it was also Ford's first volume small diesel car. The original 1,608cc diesel engine, which was used to power the Ford Escort and Orion diesel models, was upgraded to 1,753cc four years later in 1988 and went on to be a mainstay of Ford products for the next 20 years.
Ford made its next major diesel breakthrough in 2007 when the 1.8-litre diesel was replaced by the low-carbon Duratorq TDCi turbo-diesel common-rail engine. This saw a return to the 1.6-litre capacity, while engineers extended the range with addition of a 1.4-litre TDCi engine shortly after.
These Duratorq diesel engines were the product of Dagenham Diesel Centre (DDC), which was a venture that opened in 2003 and ten years later remains the centre of Ford's small-capacity diesel engine production. The DDC continues to craft the 1.6-litre and last year's addition to the range, the 75PS 1.5-litre diesel engine. With the going emphasis on diesel-powered cars, Ford confirmed the Dagenham facility produced a total of 787,398 engines in 2013, with the smaller-capacity diesel units representing more than half of those.
All this expertise has meant that today's Ford Fiesta diesel range is stronger and more environmentally-friendly than ever before, with all variations emitting less than 100g/km of CO2, while the 1.6-litre ECOnetic with Auto-Start-Stop offers an impressive combined 85.6mpg.
Ian Robertson, Diesel Car editor, said: "It's the hottest small car on the market thanks to a winning blend of class leading driver enjoyment, affordable running costs and a wide range of derivatives to suit all budgets and tastes."