Ford Focus ST (Mk3) – the car world's greatest misses

Perhaps our expectations were too high. We’d waited what seemed like an eternity for the ST version of the seventh-generation Fiesta, but it had been worth the wait. When it arrived in 2013 – a full five years after the base model had gone on sale – it turned out to be an absolute corker. It cornered like a particle whizzing around the Large Hadron Collider and bristled with ’ave‑a‑larf attitude.

Then, on the very day we pitted 2015’s new Focus ST against a sextet of rivals, Ford was pulling the covers off the 350-horse, all-wheel‑drive Focus RS that would sit above it in the range. It was the return of one of the biggest names in the biz. Ford was on a roll, and it was surely a done deal for the Focus ST. Wasn’t it?

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But while Ford was explaining the new drift mode in the RS, the evo team was slithering around south Wales in the ST, wishing we had a little more traction ourselves. No, scratch that – a lot more traction. Winter in Bannau Brycheiniog is a stern test of any car, but while the Mégane 275 Trophy quickly warmed up its Cup 2s and made the most of its limited-slip diff, and the Golf GTI and even the Kia Proceed GT felt foolproof, the Ford’s Michelin Pilot Sport 3s just wouldn’t hook up.

It would light up its tyres out of every tight turn, and wasn’t much better on the straights, still tugging at the wheel in fourth gear. We couldn’t fault the power – 247bhp and 265lb ft from its 2 litres was pretty healthy, if not class-leading, in 2015, and the Ford’s engine actually felt good for that and more. But it might have been more fun with fifty horses less, if it’d given the front end a better chance to deploy it.

There were flashes of Ford chassis magic from the ST, with the kind of pointy responses and hyper-adjustable balance we’d found in the Fiesta, but they were inconsistent, and a knobbly ride meant mid-corner and indeed mid-straight bumps could also upset it. Given how indomitable the Fiesta felt, the larger car’s ineptitude was both confusing and frustrating.

It wasn’t just that particular car, either. evo ran a couple of long-term Mk3 STs over the years, both in estate form. Our dark blue example exhibited exactly the same traits as the vivid yellow group-test hatchback. Accelerating out of roundabouts was like trying to walk a whole litter of Great Danes as the steering tugged in six directions at once, the extra weight over the rear axle probably not doing a lot to help.

Before that, though, we’d run the other ST, the one powered by a 185bhp, 300lb ft 2-litre diesel, and it was much less inclined to wind up its driveshafts into a torque-steering frenzy. During its time with us this car ended up doing two pan-European road trips, where its performance and notably less compromised handling dovetailed nicely with 40mpg economy and the comfort of those excellent standard Recaro seats.

As it turned out, the Focus ST was more of a premonition than an aberration. When the RS arrived in 2015 it proved to be a bit of a handful too, being even more stiffly suspended, and not entirely escaping the ST’s torque steer. When the dust settled, it was the Fiesta ST that remained our favourite fast Ford.

This story was first featured in evo issue 329.