Ford Focus ST
A rotary reminder of how yesterday’s performance cars compare with today’s crop
Three fun eras and a wedding
The Focus ST got several chances to stretch its legs last week, with multiple trips towards England’s south coast: one for a socially distanced wedding reception and the other to experience Mazda’s heritage f leet, marking 30 years since the fabled 787B won the Le Mans 24 Hours. No offence to the bride and groom, but I’m sure you can guess which I was more excited about, having limited experience of driving cars from before the 1990s – and no experience at all of rotary engines.
Ford’s 2.3-litre Ecoboost is no shrinking violet, with peak power arriving at 5500rpm and a 6500rpm redline. Yet despite two sizeable and throaty-sounding tailpipes, plus some in-cabin enhancement, it was never going to have the aural drama of an RX-8’S Renesis motor. Previously described on these pages as “sounding like a Hoover on full chat” in the way it screams all the way to 9000rpm, the suicide-doored coupé can be heard approaching from an impressive distance away.
The power delivery of a secondgeneration RX-7 was equally eyeopening. Turbo lag has been almost entirely engineered out of modern cars, and most (although not all) models that use forced induction do so in a fairly linear manner – including the Focus ST. Peak torque may arrive by 3000rpm, but not all in one big shove. In contrast, the Mazda comes on song in a rather hilarious manner, all in one go and complete with the unfiltered sounds of the turbo spooling up.
They don’t have true classic car status just yet, but there’s clearly something entertaining about cars like these that present-day hot hatches such as the Focus ST struggle to match – not if its maker has any intention of passing safety, noise and emissions tests, anyway.
The experience did give me a greater appreciation for the Ford’s brilliantly calibrated steering rack, which may be power-assisted but is still delightfully precise – and doesn’t require a gym session to gain the strength to perform low-speed manoeuvres. I also now value being able to jump into any modern European car and know instinctively which steering wheel stalk controls the indicators.
The reputation that rotary engines have for grenading themselves, deserved or not, put me off the prospect of ever owning one a long time ago, but I could have happily spent the rest of the day sampling the ones fettled by Mazda’s press garage. When the rain came in, though, I was glad to be leaving in the Focus ST, with its anti-lock brakes and AEB.
Over the course of 200 motorway miles, it averaged 35mpg and kept me toasty with its heated seats and steering wheel, while in Normal driving mode the engine note fell back to a mild drone while cruising. Even the M25’s barbaric concrete section couldn’t drown out the Bang & Olufsen-supplied speakers. The ST is as easy to live with as any Focus, then, which is entirely the point.
Even the four-seat RX-8 felt like a special-occasion car, whereas the Focus can be relied on for every kind of journey. It can keep pace with a Porsche 718 Cayman on a twisty road when asked, but 99% of the time it f lies under the radar. Or at least it would, were it not for the bright-orange paint.