My car has a few years left, but it's age is showing as an 11 year old car. I think I have a good enough head about it to know if I'm not financially able to make the purchase I'm not going to and it wasn't meant to be if they do decide to discontinue it before I am able to buy. I know they won't cancel after the first year, but if it takes me more than say two years they may be a complete update or drop it by the time I have the cash. If I do get a reasonable job and can save some decent money on a down payment in a fairly short time frame I'll then figure if I can make the monthly payments on the rest. Buying outright would be amazing. I bought my first two cars outright, of course both being used and being $500 and $6200 respectively, that was a bit more attainable, especially back when I wasn't paying for bills.
As for not taking it on test drive, definitely had to do that. I've been wanting a Fiesta since I heard about them coming to the states, though at that time I was planning on keeping my current car and dailying a regular Fiesta. I'm a person that does research upon research of something before making a big purchase. Being a new car will be my biggest purchase to date (besides college, which I'm really only in debt maybe $20K or so), so I've been doing my homework while waiting. If anything, taking the test drives feeds my need to drive it for a little while.
For my student loans, and maybe a jumpstart in the way of helping me out with my saving, my parent's do have a savings deal setup (I can't recall what it is) that has quite a few thousands of dollars. Can't pull it out for a bit, but my dad said we could probably pull part of it early so it can be used to help pay for my student loans so I'll owe less on that immediately. And to be honest, the amount I owe is substantially less than most people that go to big name universities. I'll have to ask them about that again later.
I'm doing my best to make smart money decisions this semester, being my last one. Ideally I'd land a job in town so I wouldn't have to waste money on moving, paying all the stupid move in fees for a new apartment and be broke again (pet fees are ridiculous). Gotta be smart about buying or not buying those things that come up that I just have to have. Stop eating out so much is a pretty big one (with a second positive of healthier).
My goal is over $5000 down payment, as close to $10000 as I can get. That would ease the pain of interest a bit. And if I'm financially stable, then making the payments should be easy. As much as I'd love to save the full ~$26K by that time I think my current car would well be on it's last legs and be costing me more money than it'd be worth keeping it and I really don't see Ford keeping the Fiesta ST around for that long really. Looking at the past of other performance model economy cars...Focus SVT 2002-2004, Escort ZX2 S/R limited run 1999-2000 (only 2100 built), Contour SVT 1998-2000...2 or 3 years and they're gone.

Maybe that will change now, no telling really. I kinda wish it were to have come out next year so I might have a slightly better chance at it, I'd still be looking at the Fiesta as my next car anyway.
I do intend to get my money's worth out of the Fiesta. Unless it gets totaled beforehand or some unforeseen circumstance, I plan to keep it no less than 10 years.
I appreciate the advice by the way. It makes me stand back and look at the situation a little better. I really do want the car so I'll do everything I can to make it a reality while staying within my limits.