Goodbye to lag
Another trick the Focus ST has up its sleeve is anti-lag. No, you’re not going to be shooting huge gouts of flame out of your tailpipes like Colin McRae on the Thousand Lakes, but the system will keep the throttle open to a degree, even upon lifting off the pedal. This tech, borrowed from the GT supercar, prevents compressor wheel stall and enables boost pressure to build quicker when the accelerator is re-applied.
now, the world’s most focused front-drive hot hatch. And it could benefit from that.
There’s something unsettling about the intensity of the Civic Type R. I’m minded of this as it powers through the forest hairpins outside of Healesville. It’s in its element here, making the Hyundai seem numb and the Focus lumpen. It’s god-like at ten-tenths, the low cowl, low seat, and slick dual-pinion variableratio steering allowing you to position the car perfectly. It feels exotic in a way denied the other pair and just so relentlessly urgent. Every fibre of the Type R goads you into driving it harder, to stalk around hill routes, to harass Porsche drivers, filling their rear-view mirrors with its exquisitely ungainly maw.
Power pours in between 2500 and 6000rpm, each gearshift bringing a bird-like chirp as the turbo bleeds off excess boost. Body control is excellent across the camber of the road, and while the brake pedal feel is initially a little vague, it firms up nicely just in the right height in the pedal arc for clean heel and toes. In order for the Civic to make sense you need to live in a cosy section of several interlinking Venn circles. You need to be willing to pay 25 percent more than the Hyundai for a couple of points of extra composure. You’re required to be willing to put up with its sophomoric styling excesses, its klutzy cabin ergonomics, its four seats rather than five. You’ll pay extra for bigger 20-inch tyres and more expensive insurance. But you’ll do that because you want the angriest, most dynamically gifted front-drive hot-hatch on the market.
You’ll choose the Type R for the same reasons 911 GT3 owners don’t want a 911 Carrera – because dynamic excellence matters to you. That it also delivers the best damping suppleness of this trio only underscores the fact that the engineers at Honda R&D Co are chassis alchemists. Let’s hope that never changes.
If the Civic is the standard of handling brilliance by which the others are judged, the Hyundai i30N pushes it very close. After the Civic, the Korean car feels no less muscular, but the steering lacks the initial bite on turn-in, the ride is slightly more abrupt and your centre of gravity feels a little more elevated. What the engine lacks in aural drama, Albert Biermann’s team at Hyundai has compensated with an exhaust system that sounds a fusillade of bangs and crackles on the overrun. As Cam Kirby discovered during our late night photoshoot, it’s genuinely naughty in a multi-storey car park or a city tunnel.
Would I choose the Fastback over the cheaper i30N hatch? Probably not. You lose a bit of rear headroom, rear visibility through the slot-like window isn’t as good and, on a shamelessly subjective basis, I don’t think it’s as pretty. I reckon most would be quite happy to put the $1500 saved towards a set of trackday rubber to help get the best from Hyundai’s circuit-friendly warranty. The hatch simply offers better bang for your buck.
The Australian tune for the suspension stiffens the rear end in comparison to the front, making it feel more playful. While this affects primary ride compliance, you gain back in the way the car copes with low amplitude, high frequency secondary imperfections. It seems a reasonable payoff to accept the odd bump in order to feel more intimately connected to the road the rest of the time. The i30N is a great ‘seat of the pants’ hatch in that regard, but such is the easily configurable nature of its N Custom mode that I suspect that many will, for typically gnarly Australian hill routes, set the ride to Comfort and amp every other setting up to maximum angry.
After driving the Honda and Hyundai, the Focus ST feels a sizeable step behind on the Chum Creek test route. I refer back to my notes. “Compared to the others, the ST seems tall and narrow. The gearbox has the longest travel of the three.
The side bolsters on the Recaro’s cushion collapse beneath your
Every fibre of the Civic Type R goads you into driving it harder