Ford Fiesta ST
A return trip to Leeds and a back-to-back drive with a past class master
Intercity M1 jaunt and a Clio RS 200
WHY WE’RE RUNNING IT To see if Ford’s hottest supermini can successfully pick up the baton from its class-topping predecessor
On the first day back at work after a week off for Christmas the Fiesta provided me with the greatest possible present for the morning commute: the Waze navigation app now works with the infotainment system. No longer do I need to balance my phone precariously in the car’s centre console to view the app: a simple glance at the 8.0in touchscreen is now all that’s needed. For those of us that use our mobile for navigation, the development is a significant one, and it was a welcome boost to the ST’S already generous level of convenience.
A few weeks earlier our three-door had already scaled new heights in proving its maturity over the old ST when, on a trip to Leeds, it officially achieved the best mile-per-gallon figure of any long-termer I’ve run while contributing to Autocar. A 38mpg average might not sound like much cause for celebration, but on a weekend that involved a sprint up the M1, dozens of miles around Leeds’ inner roads and a quick jaunt on a country route, it’s highly impressive. It’s evidence of the effectiveness of the 1.5-litre triple’s ability to run on just two cylinders and its low-down grunt that negates the need for the engine to be worked hard.
These traits do come with their own drawbacks, of course. The turbocharged motor responds so quickly from low down that, perhaps inevitably, exploring the top end is less rewarding. Mostly this is because there’s simply less of it to explore: you’ll bounce into the limiter at just over 6250rpm. In isolation, and once you get to know the engine, this is of little concern, and you instinctively change up a gear when the bassy three-pot reaches its upper realms. But if you’re used to driving a hot hatch with an elastic top-end, the otherwise impressive engine might feel a little capped.
This was certainly the case on a recent back-to-back drive with a former Autocar hot hatch champion, namely a 2010 Renault Sport Clio 200 Cup. The ageing French car lacked a large number of creature comforts that come as standard on our Blue Oval hatch, meaning it was a far less comfortable place in which to be on an icy winter morning. But as soon as the oil temperature was up and the road conditions improved, the 2.0-litre-engined Clio’s natural sporting ability was clear. Its engine, for starters, begged to be revved, while its chassis felt racy and planted compared with the Fiesta ST’S more supple set-up.
Still, the ST was definitely quicker thanks to its broader torque window and grip advantage, partially helped by the use of its more extreme Michelin Super Sport tyres compared to the discontinued 200 Cup’s Contisport Contact 5s. On cold asphalt, the Quaife front differential, included as part of the Ford’s optional Performance Pack (£850), was a godsend, finding grip where there really shouldn’t have been much and enabling the power to be applied earlier and with more aggression. The Clio, even with less grunt to juggle, struggled to compete and felt comparably nervous when asked for both steering angle and traction.
This drive gave me a chance to test the ST’S engine modes, which have so far divided opinion. I’m still firmly lodged in the camp that doesn’t see the point of them, because – aside from coaxing a couple of pops from the exhaust when you lift the accelerator – there are no real benefits to switching from Normal. The only real argument for using Sport is a slight decrease in intrusion from the electronic stability control, but even this feels like a minute change. I know this opinion exists outside of Autocar HQ, too, because reader Paul Mason, an ST owner, messaged me to say he “de-faults to Normal mode as this is usually sufficient and doesn’t make the car any less fun”. Not that this is a bad thing. It’s quite the opposite, actually.