The Grand Tour

Ford’s Tiny Hot Hatch Loses a Cylinder But Gains Horsepower

If you haven’t had the opportunity to drive Ford’s insane little hatch, do yourself a favor, find one and go drive it. The Fiesta ST, (aka the FiST), is arguably one of the funnest little hatchbacks on the market to date. Ford has taken this little ball of fun and messed about with a few things and is reintroducing it to us a bit different for 2018.

So what is Ford planning for it’s little hatch? The first thing you will notice is the body styling has changed a bit, mostly around the rear end. The Fiesta also grew a little bit in size as well, though hardly noticeable with the naked eye.  The inside gets a bit of a makeover with Ford promising a much more personalized selection of all sorts of bits including but not limited to, new bigger / better seats, (hoping to be a bit more….’I’ve just had a cheeseburger’-size friendly), new flat-bottom steering wheel, a bunch of new materials for all around the cabin, the new Sync 3 infotainment system and you can even have an artificial exhaust noise put in through the speaker system – which quite honestly is silly and not something that any car should have.

As for the biggest change and most notable is Ford dropping the 1.6 liter turbo 4-cylinder found in the current model and putting in a new 1.5 liter turbo 3-cylinder. The new 3-cylinder will bring the horsepower numbers up from 182 bhp to 197 bhp. Ford claims that the new power increase will scoot the FiST 0-62 in 6.7 seconds. Also it being formed with light weight aluminum and losing a cylinder, the new 1.5 will produce less CO2 and get MPGs. All in all not a bad setup.

As for right now it seems to be just a Euro-spec version of the car that Ford has released info on and there is yet to be any word if we will see this little guy here in the States at all. Be sure to watch the new FiST as it headlines for Ford at the Geneva Motor Show next month and for more info, video, pics and all sorts of goods, (as they become available), stay tuned here at Grand Tour Nation.

Related Articles

Back to top button