Ford Focus ST

GOODBYE

£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’VE A THEORY WHY THE FOCUS ST IS UNDERAPPRECIATED. WE SEE an ST and think “ooh, that’s a good starting point for the next RS”. Except, Ford’s announced there won’t be a new Focus RS, because it’d defecate on the precious CO2 average, unless it morphed into a superhybrid. This is as hot as a MkIV Focus is gonna get (allegedly).

EW19 OJN had a tough time at TopGear. Early on, its tyres wilted at Portimao during our TG24 speed extravaganza, and it was pipped at the group-test post by the more cartoonish Hyundai i30N. But here comes The Big Statement: this was the best car I’ve ever lived with. For expectations matched vs unwanted annoyances, the ST is unblemished. Nothing broke. Nothing fell off. After 10,000 miles, the second set of tyres remain treaded, the oil level spot-on, and it drank fuel at an average rate of exactly 30mpg.

The only rattle was traced to an Isofix cover not popping back into place after the seats had been folded. Sure, it’s not an inspiring cabin, but it’s been properly put together. No warning lights. The touchscreen remained glitch-free. That’s more than can be said of the last two Range Rovers that’ve occupied the TopGear Garage.

In the ST, which lest we forget is designed to be a less comfortable, more compromised version of a Focus, I went weeks without donating to the profanity box. It’s so complete. And that’s why it outranks the

VW Golf R and Civic Type Rs I’ve run over the years. They both shone brighter on occasion, but neither was as consistently agreeable.

So it doesn’t quite rise to the same heights as the Fiesta ST – it’s trying to be more things to more people, and has fizzier rivals. But it’s learned massively from the old ST. Proper Golf GTI alternative, this. And I reckon this won’t be where the fast Focus story ends, because the company has too big a legacy in everyman supercars to fade away overnight.