Ford Fiesta ST
Hear this: there is not a car on sale that is a more skilled exponent of the ancient and fine art of being better than the sum of its parts. It is merely an iteration of the Ford Fiesta, Britain’s bestselling car. It has a 1.5-litre, three-cylinder engine at one end and a beam axle at the other. Big deal, eh?
Massive, as it turns out. Everything is in the fine-tuning: the way the power is delivered, the throaty warble of that little engine, its relentless enthusiasm and the slickness of its gearshift. And all that before you’ve even got to what it does really well. Which is corners, where once more you must look to each end of the car to understand the magic it provides. In this case, the optional limited-slip differential at the front and super stiff suspension at the back. The combination contrives to provide grip to the axle that always needs it most in front-drive cars, and remove it from the one that always grips and spoils the fun. The result is the bestbalanced hot hatch on sale and, yes, we include the Civic Type R in that. Here is a Ford Fiesta that loves nothing more than to be lobbed into a corner on a trailing throttle until the back is where you want it to be, whereafter you can land back on the power trusting the diff to find the traction you need to fire down the straight beyond.
No car is perfect and we’d have preferred a little torque steer, a firmer brake pedal with better feel and a less squidgy rim for the wheel – but, even taking all this into account, what remains is a simply brilliant driver’s car and a practical small hatch into the bargain.
There is one more component of fast Ford heritage that hasn’t been forgotten either: at £18,995, the base ST-1 model undercuts its key rivals from Renault, Peugeot and VW, making it not just the best small hatch on sale, but the best value too.