By Frank S. Washington
ANN ARBOR, MI – Guilt free power. That’s the way one engineer described the 2013 Ford Focus St. Another way to put it is that the four-door hatchback is a rocket on wheels.
On sale since August, most of the fun involved with Ford’s Focus ST is under the hood. That’s were the Focus’ 2.0-liter four-cylinder EcoBoost engine is housed.
It had a single scroll turbocharger that Ford’s Special Vehicle Team (SVT) has finessed a hefty 254 horsepower out of and an even heftier 270 pound-feet of torque at 2,500 rpm. Mated to a six speed manual transmission, this car was made for drivers in the real sense of the word.
Zero to 60 mph time was not available but the top speed for the Ford Focus ST was 154 mph. That’s swift. The guilt free part comes in the form of 23 mpg in city driven and 32 mpg on the highway. Better is that top performance comes with regular fuel in the tank.
The Ford ST is a world class compact performance car with only three competitors: Mazda’s Speed3, Volkswagen’s GTI and Subaru’s WRX. Enthusiasts have known the Focus ST was coming for at least a year.
It first went on sale in Europe but there was fear that the U.S. would receive a watered down version of the car. That was not the case. The Focus ST sold here is identical to the European Focus ST. On the warped and ruddy rural two lane roads headed west from here, I got the chance to experience some of the car’s characteristics.
Acceleration made my heart pound. Even though there wasn’t much traffic I had to be careful because it took just a touch on the throttle and a couple of seconds, if that long, for the Focus ST to get to 80 mph. A speed that the car seemed quite comfortable at; this was on sweeping roads where some speed limits were half that.
At first, I had trouble down shifting especially from sixth to fifth gear but once I got familiar with the gear location, that took about 15 minutes, I became one with the Focus SY’s gearbox.
Under authoritative acceleration, which I did a lot, the work that the SVT team on the car’s sound symposer was evident. The Focus ST’s exhaust note was rhythmic; the cylinders pumped in unison, like an orchestra. You had to be there.
I could hear the wind racing over the top of the car but I wouldn’t characterize it as wind noise. Overall, the car was pretty quiet. It went over asphalt patches on the road with the solid thump of a quality build and I found the suspension firm but not harsh.
I was particularly pleased with how the Ford Focus ST stayed flat while I went through S curves and the like. That’s when I could tell that the car’s build quality was really good. It had a sport suspension, the shocks and the springs had been stiffened, an anti-roll bar was added to the rear suspension and the car was 10 mm lower than a regular Ford Focus.
But there was nothing regular about the ST version of the Ford Focus. The turning ratio had been tightened and all it took was 1.8 turns of the wheel to get from lock-to-lock. Engineers had made the steering quicker once the steering wheel started turning. That to me made the Focus ST very responsive to my input in the turns.
There were a couple of places where I had to really grip that wheel as not to let the car get away from me. A combination of speed, torque to the front wheels and washer board road surfaces got me close to wheel skip a couple of times but it never happened.
The car had Recaro seats. Although Ford said it was a five-passenger hatchback, I don’t think so. Those back sets looked good but snug if someone tried to sit in the rear of the vehicle.
There are three trim levels of the Focus ST and I had the ST2 package. That’s the middle setup. It provided me with partial leather Recaro seats, MyFord Touch with a Sony sound system, dual automatic climate controls, a navigation system and a really funky paint job called Tangerine Scream Tri-Coat.
Prices start at $23,700 but my test vehicle listed out at $28,170. That seemed more than reasonable to me
Frank S. Washington is editor of AboutThatCar.com
This was printed in the January 27, 2013 – February 9, 2013 Edition
