Pleasure coming in top-value package
IT’S AN embarrassment of riches at the moment for fans of the motivated hatchback, with recent arrivals including Peugeot’s 208 GTi, the VW Golf GTI and now the sweet little Ford Fiesta ST. And they’re joining an already packed roster with the Fiesta’s big brother, the five-door Focus ST, Renault’s incredible RS265 Megane and Mazda’s always-mad Mazda3 MPS.
The hot hatch market is obviously a hard-fought one, with brand loyalty getting harder for manufacturers to bank on – and with performance car buyers renowned for being fickle, car companies have no option but to put their fastest foot forward to ensure people keep coming back. One bad car, and they’re likely to never be seen again.
Ford’s Focus ST, released last year, is certainly not my fave in this arena – that’s probably the RS265, with its very clever suspension and steering combo that keeps the car from exhibiting those front-drive horrors, like torque steer. But the Fiesta, as opposed to its larger stablemate, is something very special indeed. As other hatches have grown in size over the years, cars of the Fiesta’s size have been more likely to pack an engine design to keep rice puddings and their skins perfectly safe, aiming more at mummies than petrol-heads, and offering very little in terms of driving pleasure.
But with the Fiesta’s WRC ambitions came a chassis that’s as tight as a drum and capable of taking just as savage a beating. The Zetec version and its lesser iterations were fairly engaging to drive but needed to be pushed hard to get any real pace – but that chassis was always so promising, just waiting for someone to throw a bit of power its way.
Enter ST – using the 1600cc version of Ford’s EcoBoost engine, combining direct injection, twin independent variable cam timing and the obligatory turbocharger to give 134kW of power and 240Nm of torque. The 134kW doesn’t really sound like much because, well, it isn’t. But pack that into a frame the size of the Fiesta’s and things start getting interesting.
The aforementioned Zetec, for instance, has 89kW and 151Nm, so the ST’s mumbo package is certainly upping the ante. And with an entry price of less than $26,000, it’s a lot of fun for a relatively small amount of money. The action doesn’t stop there – among the usual host of modern stability modes and braking assists is torque vectoring, which brakes wheels to ensure maximum traction when cornering and all but eliminates the great front-wheel drive curse of understeer.
This means the Fiesta corners dead flat.
After seeing off a nice bloke in an HSV, who gave chase to this little roughy up a steep twisty route, he was utterly stunned his big capacity eight wasn’t able to keep up.
It’s in these serpentine stages the Fiesta really comes into its own – it sits rock-steady on the road and even copes nicely with wet patches and other slippery bits, without losing its composure.
And it’s so level when cornering, it won’t cock a rear wheel – something with which motivated drivers of quick shopping baskets, like the Suzuki Swift Sport, will be very familiar.
Backing off traction control obviously improves the engagement level and there are two stages to the system in the ST – hit the trac off button and it will engage Sport mode in about 10 seconds; hold it down and the traction control will be disabled. This isn’t as dire as it sounds and with the torque vectoring basically aping the behaviour of a limited slip diff, it’s pretty hard to get things ugly (although if you try hard enough, anything is possible).
Ford has played it clever when it comes to the looks of this car – it isn’t dripping with Tupperware add-ons, looking like something you’ll see pulled up by our blue-hatted friends on a Friday night.
It’s tastefully tweaked, with nice touches, like an integrated roof spoiler, and the only absolute giveaway to most will be the red ST badge on the grille.