A hot party
Ford Fiesta ST puts delightful handling, good looks and plenty of tech into the mix
Ford’s American SVT group has added considerable heat to an already pretty hot party. Remarkably affordable at its price point, handsome to look at, fun to drive and very nicely finished, the Ford Fiesta ST is easily one of the more desirable cars in its competitive set, which includes the Mini Cooper S and the Chevrolet Sonic RS.
While other Fiesta trim lines can be had as either a four-door sedan or a five-door hatchback, Fiesta ST is offered only with the hatch. Fiesta ST pricing starts at $20,915.
The base-model Fiesta is already a goodlooking car, so the ST enhancements only serve to make it more so. These include a blacked-out mesh grille, a more aggressively sculpted chin spoiler, side skirts, a highmounted rear spoiler, dual chrome-tipped exhaust outlets, a specific rear lower valance treatment and 17-inch alloy wheels wearing low-profile tires.
Inside, the racy theme continues unabated. A generous allocation of metallic accents adds a nice ambiance to the sharply drawn interior treatment. It’s pretty evident Ford is aiming this car at a younger buyer, as the emphasis on the tech quotient is rather heavily applied.
The instrumentation is straightforward, readily decipherable and styled in amanner pleasing to the eye. Naturally, Ford’s Sync system is in the house, offering voice control over many of the secondary controls including the phone, climate system and navigation destination inputs.
The overall driving position is good, there’s plenty of leg room for the folks sitting up front, and if they’re willing to be generous, the people riding in the back seat will do all right for a bit. Cargo capacity suffers somewhat because the rear seat doesn’t fold completely flat; max capacity is 26 cubic feet.
Powering the front-wheel drive Fiesta ST to brilliant effect is Ford’s 197-horsepower, 1.6-liter turbocharged EcoBoost inline four-cylinder engine, capable of developing 202 pound-feet of torque. Fuel economy with this engine and the six-speed manual transmission with which it is teamed is 26 mpg in the city, 35 on the highway, and 29 combined.
Quick-steering, with tons of grip, the little Ford Fiesta ST handles delightfully. To reduce understeer, electronic Torque Vectoring Control funnels thrust to the outside wheel in a corner to improve turn-in. Meanwhile, the ST’s three-mode electronic stability control (stan- dard, sport or off) offers more control over the electronic safety net. This car proves you don’t have to have a non-compliant ride to corner well. Comfortably supple in every situation — save over speed bumps, and this is more a function of the car’s short wheelbase than its suspension tuning— the Fiesta ST is a remarkably comfortable little performance car.
The engine is smooth, likes to rev and delivers good power output throughout its rev range. In fact, we found ourselves continually bumping up against the rev limiter because the little powerplant winds so freely. There’s only minimal turbo lag, and once you get the little engine cooking, it delivers for you big time. Granted, it does its best work in second and third gears, but that’s where you’re living on the twisty roads this Fiesta loves to party on anyway.