Ford increases UK prices for Fiesta, Puma performance cars due to Brexit

LONDON -- Ford has increased UK prices of two of its performance cars that contain a high amount of non-European parts.

Tariffs that result from the trade deal agreed by the European Union and the British government were responsible for the price rises, Ford said.

The base price of the Fiesta ST small hatchback has been increased by 6.6 percent to 23,405 pounds ($31,963). The Puma ST small crossover is 6.7 percent more expensive at 30,415 pounds.

The price increases came into effect on Jan. 1, when the UK left the EU's single market after a transition period following the country's vote to leave the EU in the 2016 Brexit referendum.

They Fiesta ST and Puma ST are powered by 197-hp 1.5-liter, three-cylinder engines sourced from Mexico and six-speed manual transmissions produced in the U.S.

Sourcing engines and transmissions from outside of the UK or the EU means the foreign content of the cars rises above the 45 percent allowable under the UK-EU trade agreement that came into force in January, Ford said.

The 1.5-liter engines were previously built at Ford's factory in Bridgend, Wales, before the plant closed last year.

Ford said it sold about 2,500 Fiesta ST cars in the UK last year, equivalent to 5 percent of total Fiesta sales in the country. The Fiesta was the UK's best-selling car last year.

The Puma ST went on sale in September, but Ford said no deliveries had been made yet.

The Fiesta ST is built in Cologne, Germany, and the Puma ST is produced in Craiova, Romania.

Following the EU-UK trade deal, the SMMT industry association said the 55 percent local content requirement in the agreement was a possible source of friction.

The agreement is broadly considered workable, but if some internal combustion engine models cannot qualify, there will be little or no margin at all to adjust, the SMMT's trade policy adviser, Alessandro Marongiu, wrote on Twitter on Dec. 29.

The SMMT, which represents auto companies in the UK, had pushed for a 50 percent local content rule and also asked for diagonal cumulation that would mean parts sourced from a third country or trade bloc, for example Japan, are counted as local.

The 55 percent rule was relaxed for electrified vehicles under a sliding scale arrangement that means only 40 percent of local content was required under the trade agreement's rules of origin. The content rule rises to 45 percent in 2024, and to 55 percent in 2027. It is intended to give automakers a chance to source batteries either in EU or UK.