Review
It’s not a car that jumps out at you, despite the fact the country is full of them. Fiestas are good, dependable little cars, as populous as spiders. But, like our arachnid neighbours, they seem to keep out of the spotlight.
For the Fiesta, though, that’s thanks to conservative styling and a solid if unspectacular line-up, and not the threat of imminent crushing death under a heavy boot.
But, just as every now and again you find in the bath a great big black spider the size of your fist, which seems to have fangs and a wicked glare, so the Fiesta now has a bolder and more primeval species: the ST.
This car will not be missed, especially if it’s plastered in optional GT stripes. The Fiesta ST is the first car to come from Ford’s new TeamRS organisation, the mad scientist part of the company filled with racing and road engineers charged with turning workaday models into monsters.
So TeamRS is a bunch of hot-rodders? Not exactly, because for its first effort it has produced a sporting Fiesta with a 2.0-litre engine and a decent, if not spectacular, 148bhp. The Renault Clio 182 has, well, 182bhp, and the Peugeot 206 GTi 180 has, well, 180bhp.
TeamRS’s remit is not about shoe-horning as much horsepower under the bonnet as possible and then trying to tame it, but rather about building fine handling cars to a price that is affordable to the masses rather than a few enthusiasts. It’s a rather prosaic approach but one that it hopes will bring sales of 4,000-5,000 a year.
Ford reckons that the days of producing expensive short-run models of its core range, such as the recent 4,000-run Focus RS, are pretty much over. They almost without fail lose money and the promotional benefit of cars like that against the cost of building them hasn’t been definitively proven.
So, at the moment, the RS badge is being mothballed until Ford comes up with a plan and a product that will sell in more profitable numbers. Perhaps we will never see the outrageous-looking Fiesta RS concept on sale, which is a shame.
So we’re stuck with only 148bhp. Engineers reckon that one of the reasons for limiting horsepower was to provide a wider spread of torque, to allow the car to be driven without having to rev the pistons off it in order to get performance.
They have also speeded up the steering rack by 10%, improved the performance of the brakes, as well as putting disc brakes on the rear of a Fiesta for the first time, and modified the suspension with stiffened springs and other tweaks to wring more grip from the front end.
The gear ratios in the five speed ’box have also been revised to make the most of the engine’s performance and have shortened the gearshift.
On the outside, the ST has had some fairly subtle modifications rather than the winged and stickered excesses of performance Fords of the past – although for £200 owners can specify two Ford GT-style bonnet, roof and body stripes in red, white or blue. Subtlety be damned: the stripes are essential.
The car also comes in those three colours, and for the second time in as many months, a car looks really good in white. Like the Volkswagen Golf GTi, the Fiesta ST really suits a white paint-job.
Are these the first stirrings of that much-maligned colour coming back into fashion? I blame iPods.
To distinguish it from the more pedestrian Fiestas, the ST has a wider and deeper front grille, side skirts and a small rear spoiler, with multi spoke alloy wheels ringed by wide Pirelli P Zero tyres.
With only a few thousand sales a year and available only in three-door format, the Fiesta ST is obviously not going to be a big fleet seller. But with a competitive price of £13,595 on-the-road, CAP predicting prices around the mid-30%s after three years, a respectable 38.2mpg on the combined cycle and 179g/km of CO2, it could prove a popular user-chooser car.
FACT FILE
Engine (cc): 1,999
Max power (bhp/rpm): 148/6,000
Max torque (lb-ft/rpm): 140/4,500
Max speed (mph): 129
0-62mph (sec): 7.9
Comb fuel consumption (mpg): 38.2
CO2 emissions (g/km): 179
On sale: January
Price (OTR): £13,595
BEHIND THE WHEEL
IS THE Fiesta ST the most fun you can have in a front-wheel drive car? It’s certainly not the most powerful – by about 100bhp – but in terms of scooting round corners only the Renault Clio 182 comes close.
All the essential components of a top hot hatch are in place. It has heavily bolstered front seats, a grippy thick leather steering wheel, closely bunched metal pedals and a stubby gearlever close to hand.
The steering is heavy at slow speed but lightens up as speed increases, which is a good sign as there’s not too much power assistance to mask what the front wheels are doing, and the exhaust makes an urgent, hard-edged blare.
The gear shift is positive and snaps home on each occasion, and while the suspension is obviously firm, it really is not uncomfortably so.
But it is only when you really start to provoke the car that it rears into life. It revs freely to 7,000rpm, and while it is not lightning quick, it is more than adequate in a little car like this.
There is a slight lull in acceleration after the change-up between second and third, but the ST soon starts charging towards the rev limiter again.
The TeamRS engineers are at pains to stress how much work they’ve done on the handling, and this is where the ST excels. Even at speed on bumpy roads, it sits four-square, leveling out swells that would unsettle many performance cars.
But the real party piece is through bends. The test route we were directed down was very twisty and by the end my forearms were aching from hanging on to the wheel like grim death while the little ST bolted left and right.
Grip at the front end is huge, and should a driver need to bale out at speed with a sudden lift off or hefty stamp on the brakes, the little ST shrugs its shoulders, readjusts its position, weight and rate, and carries on.
It makes it safe and fast (as much as the two elements can be reconciled) and the back end doesn’t suddenly step out like it might on less-sorted cars. The brakes don’t just scrub off speed, they grind it off with industrial force.
Everything about this car is sorted. It has the ambience, feel and performance of a car lovingly developed and honed.
Driving verdict
THE ST brings the Fiesta scuttling out from under the sofa and into full public glare. User-choosers looking for car in this price range owe it to themselves and their sense of enjoyment to at least test drive the Fiesta ST.
