The 2011 Ford Fiesta has earned Top Safety Pick honors from the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, according to Edmund’s Inside Line and other sources. This makes the Fiesta the first minicar to earn the designation. The award also puts Ford ahead of Toyota for earning the most Top Safety Picks — eight — of any auto company, Ford notes.

The 2011 Fiesta earned the Top Safety Pick moniker by featuring standard stability control, Side Protection and Cabin Enhancement (SPACE) architecture and an impressive number of airbags including a driver’s knee airbag, dual-stage first-row airbags and side-impact and side curtain airbags.

Both sedan and hatchback models earned the Good rating from IIHS in its frontal-offset, side impact, roof strength and rear crash protection/head restraint tests. The agency noted that the Fiesta’s Top Safety Pick designation applies to Fiestas built after July, when Ford strengthened the outside door handles to “minimize the possibility of doors opening in side-impact crashes.”

The other Ford products with the Top Safety Pick award are the Ford Flex Fusion and Taurus, the Mercury Milan, and the Lincoln MKS, MKT and MKZ.