Ford Focus ST
REPORT 7
£29,495 OTR/£32,440 as tested/£377pcm
WHY IT’S HERE
Is the Fiesta ST’s bigger brother just as magical as a daily?
DRIVER
Ollie Kew
I LOVE SCOTLAND. I LOVE THAT 15 MINUTES OUT OF CENTRAL Edinburgh in most directions, you can find yourself hiking up a hill in sideways hail, only to reach the top in glorious sunshine.
From Hertfordshire to Edinburgh, via the A1 then the A66 west and northward again past Carlisle and Penrith, the ST’s readout never dipped below 41mpg. That’s 360 miles from a tank, in the end. This is something our beloved Hyundai i30N or RS Megane simply could not do. At your most careful, you’ll get nowt better than low-30s for them. If you’re dropping 50 quid into the tank three times a month instead of four, that’s a big tick in the Focus box, as a daily.
I felt guilty on the way back. The ST’s cabin was thick with Scottish mud and damp waterproofs. It deserved to enjoy itself, so I followed the old great north road down south, along the spectacular coast past North Berwick and Dunbar, then down to Durham for lunch.
This is what’s great about the hot hatch concept. Sensibly frugal on the motorway; a tap on the Sport button, and it’s a raving lunatic being chased down round a sliproad by a cacophony of exhaust crackle.
The utopian dream of a 20-minute blat down a remote B-road isn’t realistic. Fun comes from brief squirts, making the most of a roundabout. Forget the Nürburgring... commute through Milton Keynes instead.
In these moments, I’ll concede a Honda Civic Type R is more razorprecise. A Hyundai i30N is even more juvenile. A riot. That means, then, that Ford’s unashamed, not-secret goal to target Golf GTI buyers with this MkIV Focus ST has succeeded. It’s nailed the middle-ground.
This trip occurred a fortnight before lockdown. Since its Scottish jaunt, the ST has barely covered 20 miles, in supermarket shop duty. No surprise then, I’m already fantasising about where to take it when we’re allowed out.
SPECIFICATION
2261cc, 4cyl turbo,
FWD, 276bhp, 310lb ft 35.8mpg, 179g/km CO2 0–62mph in 5.7secs, 155mph
1508kg
GOOD STUFF
Jammed into one weekend, everything that’s great about the ST. The car for all seasons.
BAD STUFF
With 20 miles covered since the lockdown began, I’ll be dining out on that memory for a while.