Payday loons
The Megane RS and Fiesta ST: indecent hot-hatch fun for less than £250 a month
If you’ve found a better bang-per-buck ratio than the Megane RS or Fiesta ST, you’d better like the grub in Eastern European jails. But legally, the Renault and Ford are something else, a pair of ferociously talented hot hatches to be snapped up for under £250 a month.
Straight out of Renault Sport in Dieppe, the Megane RS is a hot hatch that trades a little Golf GTI breeding for a load more behind-thewheel attitude. It packs a 1.8-litre turbo motor with a strong-enough 276bhp into a muscular if practical five-door body, but it’s the chassis that really does the talking. With torque-steerquelling PerfoHub front struts and rear-wheel steering, it grips hard at the front and soaks up prolonged acceleration through long corners like it’s strapped to a centrifuge.
Thing is, it’s adjustable too, so the rear’s keen to jig about like a ski slalom if you throttle-lift mid-bend. It’s a sweet spot of lap-time finesse, reactive dynamics and driver interactivity.
The front tyres don’t feel as unflustered under heavy acceleration as we remember from the previous Megane RS. And if that rear-steering feels unnatural at first, as if you’re turning for a corner too early, you’ll bond with time and there isn’t much that runs harder down a twisty road than a well-driven RS.
Spec the £1500 optional Recaro seats if you can, but the bigger dilemma is Sport or Cup chassis. Neither is messing about, but it’s the Cup that brings real focus and bundles in a limited-slip differential, for £1500. It’s a stiff but far from unbearable set-up that pays dividends on track, but the extra compliance of the standard Sport (without any real loss of enjoyment when you’re on it) makes it more liveable on the road. Whatever your choice, this is a cracking deal.
You now pick from just two grades for the hottest Fiesta – ST-2 and ST-3 – since Ford dropped ST-1 due to lack of interest. Our deal is for the ST-2 (17in alloys, Recaros, LED DRLs, keyless start, eight-inch touchscreen, B&O audio), but you’ll be grinning just as hard in poverty spec as the salesman’s favourite.
The Fiesta ST wakes with a disorientating economy-car three-cylinder thrum, which explains the near-economy-car 40.4mpg, and there is a certain lethargy to how this motor gains and loses revs. But there’s also a juicy 197bhp and 214lb ft to uncork, and a fruitier note when you accelerate from the car park. From that point on, the ST very quickly gets down to business: fantastic sports seats clamp you snugly if firmly, the steering has some serious heft around top dead centre and the suspension jiggles firmly, feeding back road surface detail through palms and perch. (There’s nothing to be gained in terms of ride quality by going for our test car’s optional 18-inch wheels.)
Fears that the Fiesta is just too small to be a serious performance car vanish on a quick ⊲
The Megane corners like it’s strapped to a centrifuge; the ST mixes 40mpg with 197bhp
drive, thanks to the 1.5’s prompt throttle response and strong midrange. There’s ample here to give the front tyres a wrestling match in first and second gear, though a limited-slip differential is offered as part of the ST Performance Pack at £925.
That firm suspension is more compliant at speed than first impressions suggest, soaking up the trickier sections of a CAR test route that stress-tests even quite supple cars. You’ll enjoy the prompt but never grabby brakes, and a long-throw gearshift of pleasantly mechanical snickiness. Lovely job.
Perhaps most astonishing is how the sticky Michelin Pilot Super Sport front tyres enjoy being thrown at a corner – they’re like the tip of a vaulting pole being pinned in the ground while the rear end rotates around them, even in the damp. Keep all the stability systems on to avoid making like Daley Thompson over the nearest hedge, but even then, the ST’s mobile rear end defines this perky, playful car.