56 whichcar.com.au/wheels
T’S A CHEEKY move by Ford to stage the launch
of its third-generation Fiesta ST in France, given La
Republique is home ground for scorching B-segmenters
like the Clio RS and Peugeot 208 GTi.
Yet here we are, on one of the twistier portions of the
Route Napoleon, sitting inside the Blue Oval’s newest
and most affordable performance car. The Fiesta is
well and truly behind enemy lines right now, but it’s
clutching a garotte in one hand.
Ford’s European arm knows a thing or two about
making compact hatches go fast. This 2018 model might
be the third generation of car to wear the Fiesta ST
moniker, but the lineage stretches all the way back to
the 1981 Fiesta XR2. Those decades of experience are
manifest in the way the latest Fiesta ST drives.
“What we wanted to achieve was to improve in four
areas,” says Leo Roeks, director of Ford Performance’s
European operation. “One was the powertrain, the
engine. Power obviously, but also CO 2 emissions. Then
there was the seating position.
“Another thing that’s very important is ride, handling
and steering, and the other thing is noise. Does a three-
cylinder actually work for a sports car? I can guarantee
you; yes, it does.”
Proving naysayers wrong will be the Fiesta ST’s
greatest challenge. The decision to deploy a three-
cylinder with just 1.5 litres of swept volume makes it
an outlier in a segment populated by four-pots and will
no doubt have spec-sheet fiends scratching their heads,
especially given it weighs more than the old car and its
Polo GTI rival now boasts a big-block 2.0L. But Roeks
and his team have equipped the Fiesta with an arsenal
of go-faster tricks to compensate for its smaller heart.
The ST suffix stands for ‘Sport Technology’, and
there’s plenty of both in the fastest Fiesta. Tech helpscounteract the reductions in capacity and cylinder
count, with the new triple’s 147kW of peak power and
290Nm of maximum torque exceeding the official stats
of the outgoing 1.6 by 13kW and 50Nm respectively.
Interestingly, those numbers also line up with what the
second-gen ST generated when operating in overboost,
which could only be done for 20 seconds at a time.
High-pressure direct fuel injection (working in
concert with port injection), variable intake and
exhaust cam timing, and clever turbine geometry are
responsible for the 1.5’s prodigious muscle, and also
help mitigate turbo lag. The result of all this is a 6.5sec
0-100km/h sprint, 0.4 seconds faster despite the new
car’s 90kg of extra mass.
Amazingly, the ST also has cylinder deactivation. By
decoupling the rocker arms for cylinder number one,
the Fiesta ST’s three-pot can morph into a two-pot to
curb its thirst on light-throttle cruising.
The tech story continues underneath. The rear
suspension is a mechanically simple torsion beam but
it’s augmented by what Ford Performance calls ‘force
vectoring’ springs. Banana-shaped in profile and,
wound in opposite directions to each other, they work
to increase the rear axle’s lateral stiffness without
requiring a Watts linkage – thus netting a weight saving
of 10kg. The front knuckles have ST-specific geometry,
and no matter whether you spec the standard 17-inch
alloys or their more attractive 18-inch counterparts,
the new ST rolls on grippy Michelin Pilot Super Sports- rubber that’s more commonly found on things like
BMW M3s, rather than sub-$30K hatches.
Launch control also features, but the most
transformational improvement is the addition of
a Quaife limited-slip differential to the six-speed
transaxle. It’s a proper mechanical unit rather than
WORDS
TONY O’KANE