Ford Focus ST Estate

Does the estate ST miss out by not having a Performance Pack?

UNLIKE THE ESTATE VERSION OF the Focus ST, the hatchback can be specified with an optional Performance Pack. For £800 it adds adaptive dampers, automatic rev-matching, launch control, upshift lights and a fourth driving mode (‘Track’). So are ST Estate buyers missing out by not being able to tick this option? This month I tried a PP’D hatch back-to-back with our wagon to find out.

What quickly became apparently is that some of those extras feel far from essential. Take launch control, for example. Slot first gear, thumb the OK button on the steering wheel to confirm you want launch mode, pin the throttle (the car dials in the optimum revs), then dump the clutch to go. It satisfies your curiosity to experience it once, but given the ST has 276bhp, not 672, you don’t really feel compelled to try it a second time.

Then there’s auto rev-matching. It’s clever, no doubt, but isn’t skilfully matching revs yourself part of the pleasure of still driving a manual car, particularly if you enjoy driving enough to specify a Performance Pack on your hot hatch?

It’s the damping that provides the most intriguing difference, then, and that difference is apparent within the first 100 metres. Even in Normal mode there’s an added firmness to the adaptively damped car’s ride, enough to give the ST a more purposeful, tensed-muscle feel that our lissom estate sometimes lacks, and of course that purposefulness can be ramped up further by selecting Sport or even Track mode. However, I’m not convinced that in any mode the adaptive dampers improve the ST’S ability to do what a hot hatch (or a hot-hatch-based estate) should do best, namely pull apart a British B-road.

Pliant-riding our estate may be, but don’t mistake that for a lack of control: its ability to shrug off some of the roughest roads I know is a party piece I am becoming increasingly fascinated by. Where rival cars, and the Performance Pack ST, can have you bracing and clenching as each severe bump or dip passes beneath the wheels, the passively sprung ST Estate goes about its business in an almost serene fashion. Meanwhile its extra degree of lean in corners provides an old-fashioned but rather reassuring confirmation of how hard you’re working the car – which can often be very hard indeed thanks to its remarkably tenacious front end.

If you’re a trackday regular, or you simply want your ST to feel more ‘sporty’, the adaptive dampers would still likely be something you’d miss. But if you prefer B-roads to Brands Hatch, I reckon you could happily live without them – and the rest of the Performance Pack, too.

Date acquired February 2021 Total mileage 2064 Mileage this month 779 Costs this month £0 mpg this month 31.5