I AM YOUR CAKE, EAT ME
Two outrageously talented cars to make the everyday exceptional
There’s a whole tonne of good sense in buying a nearly new BMW M5 Competition or a Ford Fiesta ST, but a big part of the appeal is surely their astonishing versatility. It means the pressure’s off.
Because these two can do it all, they needn’t be second cars; garaged until such time as your diary and the weather can get together around the negotiating table to hammer out a deal – a 100-mile, high-pressure slot, perhaps, in which the thing simply has to blow your socks off because the rest of the time it just costs you money. And gets scuffed occasionally by the mower.
No, an M5 or a Fiesta ST can simply be your car. Your only car if needs be. And still they’ll be ready to absolutely howitzer your socks across the room when the time comes.
Both come from long, rightly lauded family lines. This M5, the F90, was the first all-wheel-drive M car (the M8 followed, as now will the M3 and M4), an idea that was controversial for all of about, ooooh, a week. Then we drove it, and understood its white-hot genius.
Inevitable driven-front-axle understeer? Nah. A chassis balance to die for, even before you start tweaking its myriad adjustable parameters? Yep. All-weather traction? Oodles of it. And slides? Oh yes, in 4WD Sport (the happy medium of the M5’s xDrive modes) and, of course, rear-drive 2WD. An awesomely capable and compelling family car with the class and clout to keep you interested for years? Yep. And it’s a bargain: if £102k for a new one feels salty, know that
less than £57k for a sub-10,000-mile approved-used example is anything but.
Incredibly, much of what makes the BMW so special applies equally to the Ford, not least its fondness for going sideways and the otherworldly calmness and cohesion with which it does so. This, truly, is the magic of the Fiesta ST; has been for a couple of generations. But in place of the previous car’s fun but forgettable four-cylinder engine, the seventh-generation Fiesta’s ST variant landed itself a gem of a motor, a 1.5-litre turbo triple that burbles, pulls and parps like a thoroughbred while still managing decent fuel economy thanks to cylinder deactivation.
Throw in a limited-slip differential (part of the must-have Performance Pack), a decent manual shift (something the BMW can’t offer, though the M5’s so indecently rapid the idea of having to change gear yourself with anything like the speed and fluency of the ZF auto is, frankly, terrifying) and the fact that the car’s a bargain new, let alone used, and you have a pretty compelling answer to any question involving the words ‘hot’, ‘hatch’ and ‘buy’. So, £16k for a 15,000-miler with the diff? All day long. ⊲ BOTH WILL BE READY TO ABSOLUTELY HOWITZER YOUR SOCKS ACROSS THE ROOM WHEN THE TIME COMES