Review of the new Ford Fiesta ST - Sense & Sportiness?

Guilty as charged. I was the staff member responsible for specifying the Fiesta ST in brilliant white with the blue racing stripes running over the roof and along the door sills. The boy racer in me couldn't help it. Okay, so I received a bit of a fizzer from the boss, who was expecting a Fiesta diesel to be delivered, but one drive on a twisty road in the ST and I think he'd have been unable to resist a smile.

To be honest, the stripes weren't the only box I ticked. The ST also came supplied with ESP stability control, power folding door mirrors, rain-sensing wipers and automatic headlights, nudging the on-the-road price just the other side of £14,000. This may not strike you as a conspicuous bargain given that you're buying a car with a 'mere' 148bhp but believe me, this ST represents one of the better hot hatch bargains and it takes a protracted spell in the car to work out why.

This car is about three things. Handling, handling and some more handling. Forget anything else. Forget the fact that you will have teenage lads gurning wildly and giving you the thumbs up as they race alongside you in their Novas. You'll also need to forget the fact that some of your friends will not allow it outside their houses. Overlook these two minor irritants and instead, find some deserted twisty roads and set it loose. It's fantastic, bit with a caveat.

Some cars work well all the time. The Fiesta ST doesn't. Drive it slowly and it feels great, the 2.0-litre engine serving up a generous measure of torque. Push a little harder and, rather bizarrely, this car starts to feel clumsy. It's intolerant of ham-fisted driving. Driven anywhere between five and eight-tenths effort and you might as well not bother. You'll need to get in the mood for this car. I caught myself at one point turning off the motorway and simultaneously switching off the stereo, checking the rear view mirror and shaking the tension out of my shoulders. The steering wheel feels utterly fantastic. It's ugly but it feels great, the chunky rim feeling like a baseball bat's grip. You'll just want to swing this car at a corner.

".find some deserted twisty roads and set it loose. It's fantastic,"

For a sports hatch, the seating position is far from perfect. The very first thing I did when I got into the ST was to attempt to locate the lever that lowers the seat. There isn't one. You really do have to sit this high. Although this isn't a problem as far as headroom goes, it doesn't feel overly sporting and taller drivers won't be able to see very far up the road in the rear view mirror. I was constantly ducking to see what was following. The rear seat catch requires a good shove to keep latched and the wider part of the rear bench fell forwards a couple of times under hard braking, on one occasion sending unrestrained luggage flying into the passenger compartment. This will require immediate attention as it's a potential safety issue.

Other gripes include alloy wheels that are very easy to kerb, both the nearside front and offside rear already wearing some battle scars. Radio reception is also somewhat hit and miss. The rear hatch opens either with a key from the outside or with a button from inside which can prove inconvenient when you're attempting to load it. The gearbox usually feels very slick between the gears but the Fiesta is geared low (probably to provide decent acceleration figures) and cruising at motorway speeds will have you cursing the lack of a sixth gear. The box doesn't like being hurried into reverse gear either, often rewarding the driver with an embarrassing graunch even with the clutch fully depressed. The car's rear also mysteriously gained a sticker of Dwight Yorke's head whilst parked in Southampton one weekend.

For all the minor irritants, there are aspects of the Fiesta ST that are worth applauding. The seats are superbly supportive, there's plenty of stowage space inside the car, the materials quality inside is leagues ahead of earlier Fiesta models and you're not assaulted with chimes the moment your butt hits the driver's seat. Chimes are a personal bugbear. Manufacturers use them so that they cab score brownie points with Euro-NCAP testers but you know things are getting out of hand when you can't sit in a parked car and listen to the radio without being nagged into wearing your seat belt. The Fiesta is, thankfully, chime free in this regard. A sincere thank you to Ford for bucking this nannying trend.

The 148bhp 2.0-litre engine is a strange choice for this sort of car. Most car makers would opt for a smaller, more highly stressed powerplant, but the big engine/small car formula is rarely a bad idea. There are a couple of drawbacks though. Because of the large, transversely-mounted engine the turning circle of the ST is enormous and you may have to take a couple of bites at getting into a supermarket bay. The other downside is fuel economy. Over a week of mixed driving, I was rather surprised to average less than 25mpg, not what you expect from a car this compact.

As you can probably appreciate, the ST is not a car without its faults. Nevertheless, the sheer fun involved in driving it hard buys it a whole lot of credit at the bank. I'd gladly accept a few of its idiosyncrasies in return for the talents of Ford's chassis engineers. Let's just say that the Fiesta ST is rapidly earning its stripes.

TOP 5 FIESTA DEALS

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