Paris Motor Show - Ford Focus ST

Ford spices up Focus range with tarmac ripping ST

No-one knows better than Ford how to turn a cooking mainstream econobox into a rip-roaring tearaway. Some will find the bulging muscles and aggressive stance a tad too hot. Tattoo us if we don’t join the overwhelming majority of car crazy cousins to fall into love at first reveal. Paris haute-couture it ain’t but underneath the “tangerine scream” overalls lurks the mouth of an Aston, the gills of a Mclaren, the tailpipes of a Lambo and the wing blisters of a…Hyundai?! This is Ford’s first true “global” hot hatch, so it might seem appropriate to find world-wide influences. Is that a Korean look to the “stingray” rear light clusters? A Peugeot-like gaping jaw of a bottom feeder up front? Whatever. Our yellow monster rides on mesmerising 19inch rims and loses the body colour grill fins of the lesser Focuses. You might wonder why it’s not a 3 door, until we explain that there’s no plan to produce 3 door Focuses for the US market; so to keep the parts bin global, this ST plays to the family friendly format of 5 doors.
You’ll only get 4 cylinders in this 250PS powered range topper. Dropping a pot, but trumpeting independent variable valve timing, low-inertia turbo and high-pressure direct injection, is planned to compensate, or in fact, increase torque levels whilst reducing emissions by a claimed 20%. As for driving performance, you’ll have to wait ’till 2012 to sample the ST, as the cooking Focus doesn’t hit the showrooms until early next year at an undisclosed price.