Ka’s Active lifestyle is colourful but stilted

Higher springs can’t top Ford’s own Fiesta

COLOUR makes such a difference and the optional metallic bronze – or Canyon Ridge as Ford calls it – looks rather fetching.

The car it’s adorning is the Ka+ Active. Like the Fiesta Active that we tested a few months ago, it’s a very affordable way for Ford to increase its presence in the ever-expanding crossover and SUV market.

It’s a simple recipe: take one standard hatchback, lift it on its springs a few centimetres and add some grey or black plastic around the wheel arches to give it a

rugged look. It’s surprisingly effective on the Ka+ partly, as mentioned, thanks to the rather striking colour scheme on our test car.

An extra 23mm has been added to the ride height to give the crossover look and, as per the formula, grey plastic can be found on the wheel arches and sills.

Roof rails are also added to provide that ‘young active lifestyle’ imagery that car company marketing people are obsessed with. Just in case you do pile a stack of surfboards or mountain bikes on the roof, Ford’s chassis engineers have fitted thicker than standard anti-roll bars. Fifteen-inch alloy wheels are standard and they’re shod with slightly narrower tyres than the standard Ka+ which helps make the ride a bit smoother.

You aren’t plied with an enormous amount of choice when selecting your Ka+ Active. A diesel engine is available, a first for this

model, but Ford doesn’t reckon many customers will choose it. That just leaves a 1.2-litre naturally aspirated threecylinder engine which produces 85bhp.

With a five-speed manual gearbox this engine is perfectly adequate for town driving, but gets a bit short of breath in the countryside and you’ll need to thrash it to make speedy progress.

The top speed is around 105mph, which is what my old Ford Escort Mk1 would do down a steep hill with a tailwind, or at least that’s what the speedo said.

Despite the fatter anti-roll bars you can still feel the extra roll around corners in the Active, but this is more than made up for by a more comfortable ride than on the standard Ka+, and an improved ability to deal with potholes. Other than these two characteristics, the Active drives exactly like the Ka+.

Inside, you get splashes of coloured trim on the door panels that match the exterior paint.

The plastics are hard and not up to the new Fiesta’s quality but that dash of colour rather lifts the atmosphere and the wise use of leather on the steering wheel adds a feeling of quality.

This is a car that retails for £12,950 (plus £745 for the paint) so not too much luxury can be expected. Ford’s SYNC 3 with newstyle 6.5in touchscreen is standard. It comes with Apple CarPlay and Android Auto through which, because there’s no sat-nav, you can use your smart phone’s navigation app. It all works well.

Manual air conditioning is standard, as is cruise control.

The non standing-on-stilts version of the Ka+ is rather a niche car itself, the Active even more so. I suspect that most people who are naturally or by habit inclined to buy a Ford will go for a Fiesta. I certainly would.

The Ka+ Active is a perfectly sound city car that looks appealing, but outside of town its engine isn’t man enough, or at least the car isn’t special enough, to make up for weak performance.

The 1.2-litre engine gets a bit short of breath when out of town