The Countryman and Paceman seem huge in the UK, but on the road in Florida, our Mini Cooper S Paceman felt positively petite.
  It felt pretty peculiar getting out of our Mini One D at Heathrow and into the supersized Paceman across the pond.
   So how did we get on? Click here for story and pictures.

The Fiesta ST is definitely a boy’s car. Girls will enjoy driving it, but somehow I don’t see many buying one (unless they’re racing drivers like Jade Edwards, below).
   It’s a racey thing with a 179bhp, 1.6-litre urbochared engine, a big spoiler on the back, 17-inch wheels and racing-style Recaro seats – and its exhaust makes a good noise.
   Of course, it’s the perfect flagship to give cred to the rest of the range. It follows in the wheel-tracks of the Fiesta XR2, much admired among hot hatch affionados, and reinforces Ford’s image as a company proud to bring performance to the masses.
   The current Fiesta handles pretty well already, but the ST has a stiffer, sportier suspension and quicker steering. It boasts ‘Torque Vectoring Control’ (the boys will love that) and three stages of traction control, one being ‘Off’ for track days.
   It is a hoot on the track, see my experiences at Llandow with Jade below, and the Joneses will be very jealous if it appears on the drive.
   It isn’t me, though. The Recaro seats are very snug indeed, and my head kept touching the tall rests if I sat up straight. The firm suspension isn’t exceptionally bumpy, but might get a bit much on uneven roads every day.
   It’s very affordable at £16,995 and has plenty of spec for the price. In fact, Product Manager Owen Gregory says most people opt for the more upscale models. And it’s flying out of dealerships – 1,000 advanced orders had been taken by the time I got to drive it April 25, and predicted resale values are good.
   Sadly those who will want it most, wouldn’t be able to insure it (boys). Bad news if Dad buys one, too. The Fiesta comes with MyKey, which allows parents (or husbands/wives) to set parameters for particular keys, including the maximum speed and even the volume of the radio.  Ferris Bueller would hate that.

Zoë Davies’ mum loves Made in Dagenham, the film about women winning recognition and equal pay at Ford’s Dagenham plant in the 1968. Apparently she finds it hard to imagine how different the work and conditions are at Ford’s Bridgend Engine plant, where Zoe has worked for 14 years.
   It’s a world away from the Metropolis-style image words such as ‘factory’ and ‘industrial’ conjure up, even now, to those who haven’t worked in one recently.
   Bridgend isn’t a new plant, but it’s super-clean – you even have to walk across a sticky pad and wear clean gloves to work in the turbo section. Noise is muted; engine blocks glide along a conveyor belts past efficient robots or technicians according to the task.
   Once complete, they will head to Ford plants all over the world, including the USA and Asia. The computers know exactly which engine is going where, and make sure each one has the right parts for the weather conditions and local emissions regulations.
    Some 2,300 people work at Bridgend in three shifts. Zoë is one of the mega-loom assembly team (wire harness). There are 11 on the team, (just two are women) and they swap jobs throughout the day to avoid boredom. “It’s like a family,” she says.
   All week she’s helping to show journalists around the plant. She often gets roped in when visitors come because she speaks fluent Welsh and can translate if necessary. We’ll be driving the new Fiesta ST once we’re finished here. She’s had a go and her face lights up as she says, “It’s really fast, much faster than my Titanium.”
   The plant already makes the 1.6-litre Ecoboost engine, introduced in 2011, but while we’re here, we’re given some good news. A new 1.5-litre version comes online soon, meaning 500 more jobs.
   It’s likely a number of them will be women, too. Zoë says when she started, there were very few, but a lot more have joined the workforce over the past couple of years. There hasn’t been a particular drive by the company, but she wonders if women are realising that factories have changed, and can be a rewarding place to work.

Jade put on her helmet and I searched for something to hang on to. The light went green, our Focus ST left bats out of hell standing and we hurtled towards the first corner on the Llandow Circuit.
  The cone was heading towards us at such a speed someone seemed to have fired it at us.
   “Head for the apex,” she said calmly, slamming it into third gear. “Use the width of the track! Move over to the right!”
   We went sideways, then straight and flat-out. The tightest of tight chicanes headed our way, I’ve no idea how we got round it, but it involved bumping straight over a big kerb.
   When I mentioned it later, she went all Crocodile Dundee: “Kerb? That’s not a kerb! The big ones’ll have the underside of the car showing.”
For full story click here

Jade Edwards races in the Ma5da MX-5 Championship, sponsored by Hanro of Switzerland. She works as a freelance instructor, and was one of a team showing journalists what the hot Focus can do.

Photos by Julian Mackie
Thanks to the Ford Motor Company

They don't see many two-seater sports cars at Disney's Kiwani Village - your can't get the kids in them. But I'm not ashamed to say Walt Disney World is a great destination for adults. Click here to see why.
   Richard and I drove the MX-5 Club for a week around Florida. Our biggest worry was getting two weeks' worth of luggage into the boot when we collected it at the airport.
   Click here for more pics and the story of how we fared. We were staying at the charming Banana Inn in Lake Worth and Disney's Kidani Village.

OK, I'm back. Very soon, when my head is the right way up, I'll be writing about driving the Mazda MX-5 Club (left) and Mini Cooper S Paceman in Florida.
   My own Mini One D didn't have a good day when I got back. I put my coffee on the roof while I loaded my shopping - unfortunately on the bit that goes up when you open the tailgate. That was: one latte £2, one car wash £4, caffeine intake zero.
  At least I remembered to take the aerial off this time. 

Teen Vogue and Toyota have created the Arrive in Style safety campaign (and some sassy marketing) aimed at young female drivers.
   It's unfortunate that it reinforces a negative image of not only young female drivers, but also their mothers. Moms and daughters are encouraged to sign a pledge not to text or put on their lipstick, or whatever at the wheel. If it saves lives, I shouldn’t complain, even if the people described don’t have two brain cells to rub together.
   The Arrive in Style campaign was developed by Teen Vogue, Toyota Motor North America and their ad agency, Dentsu America. Kicking off with the May print edition of Teen Vogue, monthly advertorials will feature tips and advice from Toyota on different safe driving topics (such as don’t text your boyfriend while driving if you want to see him again). 
    It’s a digital age, so there will also be an “Arrive in Style” online hub, teenvogue.com/arriveinstyle. The site will feature Toyota’s Mutual Driving Agreement that mothers and daughters can e-sign and share via Facebook for a chance to win monthly prizes. In addition to signing the Agreement, teens can upload a photo on the microsite of them and their mom 'air driving' for a chance to win a trip to New York City to be featured in the February 2014 issue of Teen Vogue.
 
Arrive in Style was inspired in part, by the recent study by Toyota and the University of Michigan Transportation Research Institute (UMTRI), which found a significant correlation between teen and parent driving behaviors, suggesting that parents are a major influence on a teen’s driving habits.  
    Dr. Tina Sayer, Toyota Collaborative Safety Research Center (CSRC) Principal Engineer and teen safe driving expert said:  “It is critical for parents to talk to their teens about driving safety and to always be the drivers they want their teens to be.”
    In conjunction with the launch of “Arrive in Style”, Toyota released new findings from the Study regarding driving behaviors of teen girls: 

• 62% of teen girls report using a cell phone while driving (handheld and/or hands-free).

• 30% reads a text or email once or more every time they drive. 

•  23% of teen girls respond to a text once or more every time they drive.

• 19% of teen girl drivers report that they have extended conversations via text message while driving.

•  51% of girls say they search for music on a portable music player, such as an iPod, while driving.

• 12% of girls report that they update or check social media, such as Facebook or Twitter, while driving.  

• 70% of teen girl drivers report they drive with two or three teen passengers and no adults in their car, which is associated with a doubling of a driver’s risk of being killed in a crash, as compared to having no passengers.[2]

 
For additional findings from the Study, please visit www.toyota.com/csrc.

Women in car ads are rarely the driver. Click here to see my gallery, ranging from the stylish to the offensive.